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The Cambridge Handbooks of Liturgical Study 

General Editors: 

H. B. Swete, D.D. 
J. H. Srawley, D.D. 



THE CHURCH YEAR AND 
KALENDAR 



; 1 



CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS 
2Lontlon: FETTER LANE, E.C. - 
C. F. CLAY, Manager 




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Kalendar of Peterborough Psalter (March) 
Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge (MS. 12). Cent. xiii. 



THE CHURCH YEAR AND 
KALENDAR 



BY 



JOHN DOWDEN, D.D., 

Hon. LL.D. (Edinburgh), late Bishop of Edinburgh 



Cambridge : 

at the University Press 

1910 



Cambritige : 

PBINTED BY JOHN CLAY, M.A. 
AT THE UNIVEBSITY PBESS 

/ immm 



NOTE BY THE EDITORS 

THE purpose of The Cambridge Handbooks of 
Liturgical Study is to offer to students who 
are entering upon the study of Liturgies such help 
as may enable them to proceed with advantage to 
the use of the larger and more technical works upon 
the subject which are already at their service. 

The series will treat of the history and rationale 
of the several rites and ceremonies which have found 
a place in Christian worship, with some account of 
the ancient liturgical books in which they are 
contained. Attention will also be called to the im- 
portance which liturgical forms possess as expressions 
of Christian conceptions and beliefs. 

Each volume will provide a list or lists of the 
books in which the study of its subject may be 
pursued, and will contain a table of Contents and 
an Index. 

The editors do not hold themselves responsible 
for the opinions expressed in the several volumes 
of the series. While offering suggestions on points 
of detail, they have left each writer to treat his 
subject in his own way, regard being had to the 
general plan and purpose of the series. 

H. B. S. 
J. H. S. 



[The manuscript of the present volume was sent to 
the press only a few weeks before the lamented death of 
the author, and therefore the work did not receive final 
revision at his hands. In its original draft the manuscript 
contained a somewhat fuller discussion of some of the 
topics handled, e.g. the work of the mediaeval computists, 
and such technical terms as 'Sunday Letters,' 'Epacts,' 
etc., as well as a fuller treatment of the various Eastern 
Kalendars. Exigencies of space, however, and the scope 
of the present series, made it necessary for the author 
to curtail these portions of his work, while suggesting 
books in which the study of these topics may be pursued 
by the student. The Editors have endeavoured, as far 
as possible, to verify the references and to supplement 
them, where it seemed necessary to do so. In a few 
cases they have added short additional notes, enclosed 
in brackets, and bearing an indication that they are the 
work of the Editors.] 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction xi 

A short Bibliography xxi 

I. The 'Week' adopted from the Jews. 

The Lord's Day : early notices. The 
Sabbath (Saturday) perhaps not ob- 
served by Christians before the fourth 
century : varieties in the character of 
its observance. The word feria applied 
to ordinary week days : conjectures as 
to its origin. Wednesdays and Fridays 
observed as ' stations,' or days of fasting 1 

II. Days of the Martyrs. Local observances 

at the burial places of Martyrs. Early 
Kalendars : the Bucherian ; the Syrian 
(Arian) Kalendar ; the Kalendar of 
Polemius Silvius ; the Carthaginian. 
The Sacramentary of Leo ; the Gregorian 
Sacramentary. All Saints' Day ; All 
Souls' Day. The days of Martyrs the 
dominant feature in early Kalendars : 
the Maccabees 12 



Vlll CONTENTS 

CHAP. PAGE 

III. Origins of the feasts of the Lord's 
Nativity and The Epiphany. Festivals 
associated with the Nativity in early 
Kalendars 27 

IY. Other commemorations of the Lord. 
The Circumcision ; Passiontide, Holy 
Week ; mimetic character of observances. 
The Ascension. The Transfiguration. 
Pentecost 37 

V. Festivals of the Virgin Mary. Hypa- 
pante (the Purification), originally a 
festival of the Lord. The same true of 
the Annunciation. The Nativity and 
the Sleep (Dormitio) of the Virgin. The 
Presentation. The Conception. The epi- 
thet ' Immaculate' prefixed to the title 
in 1854. Festivals of the Theotokos in 
the East . ... . . .47 

VI. Festivals of Apostles, Evangelists, and 

OTHER PERSONS NAMED IN THE NEW TESTA- 
MENT. St Peter and St Paul. St Peter's 
Chair, — the Chair at Antioch. St Peter's 
Chains. St Andrew. St James the Great. 
St John : St John before the Latin gate, a 
Western festival. St Matthew. St Luke. 
St Mark. St Philip and St James. St 
Simon and St Jude. St Thomas. St 
Bartholomew. St John the Baptist : his 
Nativity, his Decollation. The Conver- 
sion of St Paul. St Mary Magdalene. 
St Barnabas. Eastern commemorations 
of the Seventy disciples (apostles). Oc- 
taves. Vigils 58 



CONTENTS IX 

PAGE 

Seasons of preparation and penitence. 
Advent: varieties in its observance. Lent: 
its historical development ; varieties as to 
its commencement and its length. Other 
special times of fasting : the three fasts 
known in the West as Quadragesima. 
Eogation days. The Four Seasons 
(Ember Days). Fasts of Eastern 
Churches 76 

Western Kalendars and Martyrologies : 
Bede, Florus, Ado, Usuard. Old Irish 
Martyrologies. Value of Kalendars to- 
wards ascertaining the dates and origins 
of liturgical manuscripts. Claves Festo- 
ru?n. The modern Roman Martyrology 93 

Easter and the Moveable Commemora- 
tions. Early Paschal controversies. Rule 
as to the full moon after the vernal 
equinox. Hippolytus and his cycle : 
the so-called Cyprianic cycle ; Dionysius 
of Alexandria. Anatolius. The Council 
of Nicaea and the Easter controversy. 
Later differences between the computa- 
tions of Rome and Alexandria. Festal 
(or Paschal) Letters of the Bishops of 
Alexandria. Supputatio Romana. Vic- 
torius of Aquitaine. Dionysius Exiguus. 
The Nineteen-year Cycle. The Paschal 
Limits. The Gregorian Reform. The 
adoption of the New Style . 104 



X CONTENTS 

CHAP. PAGE 

X. The Kalendar of the Orthodox Church 
of the East. The Menologies. I. Im- 
moveable Commemorations. The twelve 
great primary festivals ; the four great 
secondary festivals. The middle class, 
greater and lesser festivals. The minor 
festivals, and subdivisions. Explanation 
of terms used in the Greek Kalendar. 
II. The Cycle of Sundays, or Dominical 
Kalendar 133 

Appendix I. The Paschal Question in the 

Celtic Churches ... 146 

Appendix II. Note on the Kalendars of the 

separated Churches of the East 147 

Appendix III. Note on the history of the Kalen- 
dar of the Church of England 
since the Keformation . . 149 



PLATES 

1. Kalendar of the Peterborough Psalter 

to face Title 

2. The Syriac Martyrology . . „ p. 15 I 

3. Kalendar of the Worcester Book „ p. 93 I 

4. Kalendar of the Durham Psalter „ p. 99 



INTRODUCTION 

The Church's Year, as it has been known for many- 
centuries throughout Christendom, is characterised, 
first, by the weekly festival of the Lord's Day (a 
feature which dates from the dawn of the Church's 
life and the age of the Apostles) and, secondly, by 
the annual recurrence of fasts and festivals, of certain 
days and certain seasons of religious observance. 
These latter emerged, and came to find places in the 
Kalendar at various periods. 

In order of time the season of the Pascha, the 
commemoration of the death, and, subsequently, of 
the resurrection of the Saviour, is the first of the 
annual observances to appear in history. Again, at 
an early date local commemorations of the deaths of 
victims of the great persecutions under the pagan 
Emperors were observed yearly. And some of these 
(notably those who suffered at Rome) gradually gained 
positions in the Church's Year in regions remote from 
the places of their origin. Speaking generally, little 
as it might be thought probable beforehand, it is 
a fact that martyrs of local celebrity emerge in the 
history of the Kalendar at an earlier date than any 

d. b 



Xll INTRODUCTION 

but the most eminent of the Apostles (who were 
also martyrs), and earlier than some of the festivals 
of the Lord Himself. The Kalendar had its origin 
in the historical events of the martyrdoms. 

So far the growth of the Kalendar was the out- 
come of natural and spontaneous feeling. But at a 
later time we have manifest indications of artificial 
constructiveness, the laboured studies of the cloister, 
and the work of professional martyrologists and 
Kalendar- makers. To take, for the purpose of 
illustration, an extreme case, it is obvious that the 
assignment of days in the Kalendar of the Eastern 
Church to Trophimus, Sosipater and Erastus, Phile- 
mon and Archippus, Onesimus, Agabus, Rufus, Asyn- 
cretus, Phlegon, Hermas, the woman of Samaria 
(to whom the name Photina was given), and other 
persons whose names occur in the r^ew Testament, 
is the outcome of deliberate and elaborate constructive- 
ness. The same is true of the days of Old Testament 
Patriarchs and Prophets, once, in a measure, a feature 
of Western, as they are still of Eastern Kalendars. 
But even all the festivals of our Lord, save the Pascha, 
though doubtless suggested by a spontaneous feeling 
of reverence, could be assigned to particular days of 
the year only after some processes of investigation 
and inference, or of conjecture. Whether the birth- 
day of the Founder of the Christian religion should 
be placed on January 6 or on December 25 was a 
matter of debate and argument. Commentators on 
the history of the Gospels, the conjectures of inter- 
preters of Old Testament prophecy, and such informa- 



INTRODUCTION Xlll 

tion as might be fancied to be derivable from ancient 
annals, had of necessity to be considered. The 
assignment of the feast of the Nativity to a particular 
day was a product of the reflective and constructive 
spirit. 

It is not absolutely impossible that ancient 
tradition, if not actual record, may be the source 
of June 29 being assigned for the martyrdom of 
St Peter and St Paul ; but a more probable origin of 
the date is that it marks the translation of relics. 
Certainly the days of most of the Apostles (considered 
as the days of their martyrdoms) have little or no 
support from sources that have any claim to be 
regarded as historical. They find their places but 
gradually, and, it would seem, as the result of a 
resolve that none of them should be forgotten. 

Commemorations which mark the definition of a 
dogma, or which originated in the special emphasis 
given at some particular epoch to certain aspects of 
popular belief and sentiment, have all appeared at 
times well within the ken of the historical student. 
Thus, 'Orthodoxy Sunday' (the first Sunday in Lent) 
in the Kalendar of the Greek Church is but little 
concerned with the controversies on the right faith 
which occupied the great Councils of the fourth and 
fifth centuries. It commemorates the triumph of the 
party that secured the use of images over the 
iconoclasts; this was the ' orthodoxy ' which was 
chiefly celebrated ; and we can fix the date of the 
establishment of the festival as a.d. 842. Again, the 
commemoration of All Souls in the West was the 

62 



XIV INTRODUCTION 

outcome of a growing sense of the need of prayers 
and masses on behalf of the faithful departed. The 
ninth century shows traces of the observance of some 
such day ; but it was not till the close of the tenth 
century, under the special impetus supplied by the 
reported visions of a pilgrim from Jerusalem, who 
declared that he had seen the tortures of the souls 
suffering purgatorial fire, that the observance made 
headway. We then find Nov. 2 assigned for the 
festival, which came to be gradually and slowly 
adopted. The feast of Corpus Christi, which now 
figures so largely in the popular devotions of several 
countries of Europe, and is marked as a ' double of 
the first class ' in the service-books of the Church of 
Rome, emerges for the first time in the thirteenth 
century, and was not formally enjoined till the 
fourteenth. The feast of the Conception of St Mary 
the Virgin seems to have originated in the East, and 
to have been simply a historical commemoration, even 
as the Greeks commemorate the conception of St John 
the Baptist. The Eastern tradition represents Anna 
as barren and well stricken in years, when, in answer 
to her prayers and those of Joachim her spouse, God 
revealed to them by an angel that they should have a 
child. This conception was according to the Greek 
Menology ' contrary to the laws of nature/ like that 
of the Baptist. In the West the festival of the 
Conception appears at the end of the eleventh or 
beginning of the twelfth century. The controversies 
as to its doctrinal significance form part of the history 
of dogma, and are full of instruction : but they cannot 



INTRODUCTION XV 

be considered here. Up to the year 1854 the name 
of the festival in the Kalendars of the authorised 
service-books of the Roman Church was simply 
Conceptio B. Mariae Virginis. It was as recently as 
Dec. 8, 1854, by an ordinance of Pope Pius IX, that 
the name was changed into Immaculata Conceptio 
B. Mariae Virginis. It will thus be seen how 
changes in the Kalendar illustrate the changes and 
accretions of dogma, facts which are further exhibited 
by the changes in the rank and dignity of festivals of 
this kind, at first only tolerated perhaps, and of local 
usage, but eventually enjoined as of universal 
obligation, and elevated in the order and grade of 
festal classification. Again, the considerable number 
of festivals of the Greek and Russian Churches 
connected with relics and wonder-working icons throws 
a light on the intellectual stand-point and the current 
beliefs in these ancient branches of the Catholic 
Church. 

Not less instructive in exhibiting the extraordinary 
growth in the cultus of the Blessed Virgin in the 
West are the inferences which may be gathered from 
a knowledge of the fact that no festival of the Virgin 
was celebrated in the Church of Rome before the 
seventh century, when we compare the crowd of festi- 
vals, major and minor, devoted to the Virgin in the 
Roman Kalendar of to-day. But considerations of this 
kind are only incidentally touched on in the following 
pages ; and they are referred to here simply with a 
view to show that the study of the Kalendar is not an 
enquiry interesting merely to dry-as-dust antiquaries, 



XVI INTRODUCTION 

but one which is intimately connected with the study 
of the history of belief, and is inwoven with far- 
reaching issues. 

In the enquiry into the origins of ecclesiastical 
observances the discovery within recent years of early 
documents, hitherto unknown in modern days, en- 
forces the obvious thought that our conceptions on 
such subjects must be liable to re-adjustment from 
time to time in the light of new evidence. Until the 
day comes, if it ever comes, when it can be said with 
truth that the materials supplied by the early 
manuscripts of the East and West have been ex- 
hausted, there can be no finality. The document 
discovered some ten or twelve years ago, in which a 
lady from Gaul or Spain, who had gone on pilgrimage 
to the East, records her impressions of religious 
observances which she had witnessed at Jerusalem 
towards the close of the fourth century, has furnished 
some important light on the subject before us, as 
well as on the history of ceremonial. In the following 
pages this document is referred to as the Pilgrimage 
of Silvia ('Peregrinatio Silviae'), without prejudice 
to the question relating to the true name of the 
writer. The period when the work was written is the 
important question for our purposes ; and those who 
are most competent to express an opinion consider 
that it belongs to the time of Theodosius the Great, 
and to a date between the years 383 and 394. 

The influence of the early mediaeval martyrologists, 
Bede, Florus, Ado, and Usuard, upon the mediaeval 
Kalendars, is unquestionable; but the relations of 



INTRODUCTION XV11 

their works to one another, the variations of the 
different recensions and the sources from which they 
were drawn, are still subjects of investigation. In 
addition to the brief notices of the martyrologists 
which will be found in the following pages, the 
enquirer who desires further information should not 
fail to study with care the recent treatise of Dom 
Henri Quentin, of Solesmes, Les Martyrologes 
Mstoriques. 

Of necessity a general outline sketch of the 
formation of the Kalendar is all that can be attempted 
in the following pages. Local Kalendars, more 
especially, for most of our readers, those of the 
service-books of England, Scotland, and Ireland, 
present many interesting and attractive features ; 
but it has been impossible to deal with them in an 
adequate manner. Some space has, however, been 
devoted to the consideration of the Kalendar and 
Ecclesiastical Year of the Orthodox Church of the East, 
including the peculiar arrangement of the grouping of 
Sundays ; and brief notices are given of the fasts and 
festivals of some of the separated Churches of the East. 

The questions concerning the determination of 
Easter will form the main trial of the patience of the 
student. 

The early controversies on the Paschal question 
are not free from obscurity ; and the interests attach- 
ing to the construction of the various systems of cycles, 
intended to form a perpetual table for the unerring 
determination of the date of Easter, are mainly the 
interests which are awakened by the history of human 



XV111 INTRODUCTION 

ingenuity grappling more or less successfully with 
a problem which called for astronomical knowledge 
and mathematical skill. Religious interests are not 
touched even remotely. Profound as are the thoughts 
and emotions which cluster around the commemoration 
of the Lord's Resurrection, they are quite independent 
of any considerations connected with the age of the 
moon and the date of the vernal equinox. The 
scheme for a time seriously entertained by Gregory 
XIII of making the celebration of Easter to fall on a 
fixed Sunday, the same in every year, has much to 
commend it. Had it been adopted we should, at all 
events, have been spared many practical incon- 
veniences, and the ecclesiastical computists would 
have been saved a vast amount of labour. But we 
must take things as they are. 

If anyone contends that the safest 'Rule for 
finding Easter' is 'Buy a penny almanack/ I give in 
a ready assent. It has in principle high ecclesiastical 
precedent ; for it was exactly the same reasonable 
plan of accepting the determinations of those whom 
one has good reason to think competent authorities, 
which in ancient times made the Christian world 
await the pronouncements as to the date of Easter 
which came year by year from the Patriarchs of 
Alexandria in their Paschal Epistles : while for the 
date of Easter in any particular year in the distant 
past, or in the future, there are few who will not 
prefer the Tables supplied in such works as UArt de 
verifier les Dates, or Mas Latrie's Tresor de Ckronologie, 
to any calculations of their own, based on the Golden 



INTRODUCTION XIX 

Numbers and Sunday Letters 1 . In the present 
volume the limits of space forbid any detailed dis- 
cussion of the principles involved and the methods 
employed in the determination of Easter by the 
computists both ancient and modern. A brief 
historical sketch of the successive reforms of the 
Kalendar is all that has been found possible. Those 
who seek for fuller information can resort to the 
treatises mentioned above or in the course of the 
volume. The chapter on Easter has for convenience 
been placed near the conclusion of this volume. 

In dealing with both Eastern and Western Kalen- 
dars the student will bear in mind that only compara- 
tively few of the festivals affected the life of the great 
body of the faithful. A very large number of festivals 
were marked in the services of the Church by certain 
liturgical changes or additions. Many of them had 
their special propria] others were grouped in classes; 
and each class had its own special liturgical features. 
Only comparatively few made themselves felt outside 
the walls of the churches. Some of them carried a 
cessation from servile labour, or caused the closing of 
the law courts, or, as chiefly in the Greek Church, 
mitigated in various degrees (according to the dignity 
of the festival) the rigour of fasting. The distinction 
between festa chori a,n&festafori is always worthy of 
observation. A relic of the distinction is preserved 

1 Less costly works are Giry's admirable Manuel de Diplo- 
matique (1894), Sir Harris Nicholas' Chronology of History, and 
Mr J. J. Bond's Handy -Booh of Rules and Tables for verifying 
dates. 



XX INTRODUCTION 

in an expression of common currency in France, when 
one speaks of a person as of insignificant importance, 
C'est un saint qui on ne chome pas. 

Although the general scope of the following pages 
is wide in intention, the origins of the Kalendar and 
the rise of the principal seasons and days of observance 
have chiefly attracted the interest of the writer. 
Later developments are not wholly neglected, but 
they occupy a subordinate place. 

The enactments of civil legislation under the 
Christian Emperors and other rulers, in respect to 
the observance of Sunday and other Christian holy 
days, is an interesting field of study ; but it has been 
impossible to enter upon it here in view of the limits 
of space at our disposal. 

The study of Kalendars brings one into constant 
contact with hagiology, the acts of martyrs, and the 
lives of saints. It would however have been obviously 
vain to deal seriously in the present volume with so 
vast a subject, even in broadest outline. 

A short Bibliography of some important or 
serviceable works dealing with various branches of the 
subject before us is prefixed. 



A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY 



Achelis, H. Die Martyrologien, ihre Geschichte und ihr 
Werth. (Berlin, 1900.) 

ACTA'SANCTORVM. [Of the Bollandists. This vast 
collection, of which the first volume appeared in 1643, 
had attained by the middle of the nineteenth century, 
after various interruptions in the labours of the 
compilers, to 55 volumes, folio, and the work is still 
in process, having now reached the early days of 
November. Various Kalendars and Martyrologies 
have been printed in the work. The Martyrology of 
Venerable Bede, with the additions of Floras and 
others, will be found in the second volume for March ; 
the metrical Ephemerides of the Greeks and Eussians 
in the first volume for May; Usuard's Martyrology 
in the sixth and seventh volumes for June, and also 
an abbreviated form of the Hieronymian. The second 
volume for November contains the Syriac Martyrology 
of Dr Wright edited afresh by R. Graffin with a 
translation into Greek by Duchesne. The same 
volume contains the Hieronymian Martyrology edited 
by De Rossi and Duchesne.] 

Assemanus, Josephus Simon. Kalendaria Ecclesiae 
Universae, in quibus turn ex vetustis marmoribus, turn 
ex codicibus, tabulis, parietinis, pictis, scriptis scalptisve 
Sanetorum nomina, imagines, et festi per annum dies 
Ecclesiarum Orientis et Occidentis, praemissis unius- 



XX11 BIBLIOGRAPHY 

cujusque Ecclesiae originibus, recensentur, describuntur, 
notisque illustrantur. 4to, 6 torn. Bomae, 1755. The 
title raises hopes which are not verified. [This work 
of the learned Syrian, who for his services to sacred 
erudition was made Prefect of the Library of the 
Vatican, was planned on a colossal scale, but it was 
never completed, and indeed we may truly say only 
begun. The six volumes which alone remain are 
wholly concerned with the Slavonic Church. The 
first four volumes, together with a large part of the 
fifth, are devoted mainly to the history of Slavonic 
Christianity. The concluding part of the fifth and 
the whole of the sixth volume deal with a Kussian 
Kalendar, commencing the year, as in the Greek 
Church, with 1 September. This is treated very 
fully, but the work ends here.] 

Baillet, Adrien. Les Vies des Saints. 2nd Ed. 10 vols. 
4to. 1739. [The ninth volume on the moveable 
feasts abounds in valuable information ; and, gene- 
rally, this work may be consulted on the history of 
the festivals with much profit.] 

Bingham, J oseph. Origines Ecclesiasticae, or the A ntiquities 
of the Christian Church, etc. [Of the numerous editions 
of this important work, which has been by no means 
superseded, the most serviceable is the edition to be 
found in Bingham's Works, 9 vols. 8vo. (1840) 'with 
the quotations at length in the original languages.' 
The editor is J. B. Pitman. Volume 7 contains most 
of what is pertinent to the antiquities of the feasts 
and fasts of the early Church.] 

Binterim, A. J. Die vorzilglichsten Denhwurdiglceiten der 
Christ-Kathol. Kirche. Vol. v. (Mainz, 1829.) 

Cabrol, Fernand. Dictionnaire d'arche'ologie chretienne 
et de liturgie. Paris, 1907 (in process of publication). 



BIBLIOGRAPHY XX111 

D'Achery, Lucas. Spicilegium. Tom. n. fol. Paris, 
1723. [This contains the Hieronymian Martyrology; 
the metrical Martyrology attributed to Bede; the 
Martyrology known as Gellonense (from the monastery 
at Gellone, on the borders of the diocese of Lodeve in 
the province of Narbonne), assigned to about A.D. 
804; the metrical Martyrology of Wandalbert the 
deacon, of the diocese of Treves, about a.d. 850 ; and 
an old Kalendar (a.d. 826) from a manuscript of 
Corbie.] 

Duchesne, L. Origines du Culte chretien. 3rd Ed. 8vo. 
Paris, 1902. [There is an English translation by 
M. L. M c Clure, London (S.P.C.K.), 1903. The merits 
of Duchesne are so generally recognised that it is 
unnecessary to speak of them here.] 

Grotefend, H. Zeitrechnung des deutschen Mittelalters und 
derNeuzeit. 4to. 2 vols. Hanover, 1891, 1892— 8. [Be- 
sides exhibiting in full a large collection of Kalendars 
of Dioceses and Monastic Orders, not only of Germany, 
but also of Denmark, Scandinavia, and Switzerland, 
this work contains an index of Saints marking their 
days in various Kalendars, including certain Kalendars 
of England. There is also a Glossary, explaining both 
technical terms and the words of popular speech and 
folk-lore in connexion with days and seasons.] 

Hampson, B. T. Medii Mvi Kalendarium, or dates, 
charters, and customs of the middle ages, with 
Kalendars from the tenth to the fifteenth century ; and 
an alphabetical digest of obsolete names of days: form- 
ing a Glossary of the dates of the middle ages, with 
Tables and other aids for ascertaining dates. 8vo. 
2 vols. London, 1841. [The first volume is mainly 
occupied with ' popular customs and superstitions'; 
but it also contains reprints of various Anglo-Saxon 



XXIV BIBLIOGRAPHY 

and early English Kalendars. The second volume is 
given over wholly to a useful, though occasionally 
somewhat uncritical glossary.] 

Hospinian, Kudolph. Festa Christianorum, hoc est, Be 
origine, progressu, ceremoniis et ritibus festorum dierv/m 
Christianorum Liber unus (folio). Tiguri, 1593. [This 
is a work of considerable learning for its day, written 
from the standpoint of a Swiss Protestant. A second 
edition, in which replies are made to the criticisms of 
Cardinal Bellarmine and Gretser, appeared, also at 
Zurich, and in folio, in 1612.] 

Ideler, Ludwig. Handbuch der mathewnatischen und 
teehnischen Chronologie. 8vo. 2 vols. Berlin, 1825 — 
26. [Ideler was Royal Astronomer and Professor in 
the University of Berlin. His discussion of the Easter 
cycles cannot be dispensed with. This and his 
account of the computation of time in the Christian 
Church will be found in Vol. 2 (pp. 175—470). The 
Gregorian reform is well dealt with.] 

Kellner, K. A. Heinrich. Heortology: a history of the 
Christian Festivals from their origin to the present day. 
Translated from the second German edition. 8vo. 
London, 1908. [Dr Kellner is Professor of Catholic 
Theology in the University of Bonn. An interesting 
and useful volume, though occasionally exhibiting, as 
is not unnatural, marked ecclesiastical predilections. 
It contains prefixed a useful bibliography.] 

Lietzmann, H. Die drei dltesten Martyrologien. E. tr. 8vo. 
Cambridge, 1904. [This little pamphlet of 16 pages 
exhibits conveniently the texts of (1) what is variously 
known as the Bucherian, or Liberian, or Philocalian 
Martyrology, (2) The Martyrology of Carthage, and 
(3) Wright's Syrian Martyrology.] 

Maclean, Arthur John (Bishop of Moray). The article 



BIBLIOGRAPHY XXV 

? Calendar, the Christian ' in Hastings' Dictionary of 
Christ and the Gospels [admirable, generally, for the 
early period.] 

Maclean, Arthur John (Bishop of Moray). East Syrian 
Daily Offices. London, 8vo., 1894. [An appendix 
deals with the Kalendar of the modern Nestorians 
(Assyrian Christians).] 

Neale, John Mason. A History of the Holy Eastern 
Church. General Introduction. London, 8vo., 1850. 
[Vol. II. gives information at considerable length on 
the Kalendars of the Byzantine, Russian, Armenian, 
and Ethiopic Churches.] 

Nilles, Nicolaus. Kalendarium Manuale utriusque 
Ecclesiae Orientalis et Occidentalism academiis cleri- 
corum accommodatum. 2 torn. 8vo. Oeniponte, 1896, 
1897. [N. Nilles, S.J., Professor in the University of 
Innsbruck, deals mainly in these volumes with the 
ecclesiastical year in Eastern Churches.] 

Quentin, Henri. Les Martyrologes historiques du moyen 
age, etude sur la formation du Martyrologe romain. 
8vo. Paris, 1907. 

Saxony, Maximilian, Prince of. Praelectiones de 
Liturgiis Orientalibus. Tom. I. 8vo. Friburgi Bris- 
goviae, 1908. [This volume is mainly concerned with 
the Kalendars and Liturgical Year of the Greek and 
Slavonic Churches. It is lucid and interesting.] 

Seabury, Samuel, D.D. The Theory and Use of the 
Church Calendar in the measurement and distribution 
of Time; being an account of the origin and use of the 
Calendar; of its reformation from the Old to the New 
Style ; and of its adaptation to the use of the English 
Church by the British Parliament under George II 
8vo. New York, 1872. [Excellent on the restricted 
subject with which it deals. It does not deal with 



XXVI BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Christian Festivals beyond the question of the deter- 
mination of Easter, but is largely concerned with 
matters of technical chronology, the ancient cycles, 
golden numbers, epacts, etc.] 

Smith, William, and Cheetham, Samuel. A Dictionary 
of Christian Antiquities. 2 vols. London, 1875, 1880. 
[The articles contributed by various scholars, as was 
inevitable, vary much in merit. Those on the festivals 
by the Eev. Eobert Sinker are particularly valuable. 
This work is cited in the following pages as D. 0. A.] 

Wordsworth, John, Bishop of Salisbury. The Ministry 
of Grace. London, 8vo., 1901. [This learned work, 
under a not very illuminative title, discusses, inter 
alia, with a thorough knowledge of the best and most 
recent literature of the subject, the development of the 
Church's fasts and festivals. It stands pre-eminent 
among English works dealing with the subject.] 

[Gasquet, Abbot, and Bishop, Edmund. The Bosworth 
Psalter. London, 1908. Contains valuable informa- 
tion about some Mediaeval Kalendars, with discussions 
of them. Edd.] 



CHAPTER I 

THE WEEK 

The Church of Christ, founded in Judaea by Him 
who, after the flesh, was of the family of David, and 
advanced and guided in its earlier years by leaders 
of Jewish descent, could not fail to bear traces of 
its Hebrew origin. The attitude and trend of minds 
that had been long familiar with the religious polity 
of the Hebrews, and with the worship of the Temple 
and the Synagogue, showed themselves in the insti- 
tutions and worship of the early Church. This truth 
is observable to some extent in the Church's polity 
and scheme of government, and even more clearly in 
the methods and forms of its liturgical worship. It 
is not then to be wondered at that the same influences 
were at work in the ordering of the times and seasons, 
the fasts and festivals, of the Church's year. 

The Week and the Lord's Day. 

Most potent in affecting the whole daily life of 
Christendom in all ages was the passing on from 
Judaism of the Week of seven days. Inwoven, as it 
is, with the history of our lives, and taken very much 

d. 1 



Z CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

as matter of course, as if it were something like a 
law of nature, the dominating influence and far 
reaching effects of this seven-day division of time are 
seldom fully realised. 

The Week, known in the Roman world at the 
time of our Lord only in connexion with the obscure 
speculations of Eastern astrology, or as a feature, in 
its Sabbath, of the lives of the widely-spread Jewish 
settlers in the great cities of the Empire, had been 
from remote times accepted among various oriental 
peoples. It would be outside our province to enquire 
into its origin, though much can be said in favour of 
the view that it took its rise out of a rough division 
into four of the lunar month. But, so far as Chris- 
tianity is concerned, it is enough to know that it was 
beyond all doubt taken over from the religion of the 
Hebrews. 

It is not improbable that at the outset some of the 
Christian converts from Judaism may have continued 
to observe the Jewish Sabbath, the seventh or last 
day of the week: and that attempts were made to 
fasten its obligations upon Gentile converts is evident 
from St Paul's Epistle to the Colossians (ii. 16). 
But it is certain that at an early date among Christians 
the first day of the week was marked by special 
religious observances. The testimony of the Acts of 
the Apostles and the Epistles of St Paul shows us 
the first day of the week as a time for the assembling 
of Christians for instruction and for worship, when 
'the breaking of bread' formed part of the service, 
and when offerings for charitable and religious pur- 



THE WEEK 3 

poses might be laid up in store 1 . The name 'the 
Lord's day/ applied to the first day of the week, may 
probably be traced to New Testament times. The 
occurrence of the expression in the Revelation of 
St John (i. 10) has been commonly regarded as a 
testimony to this application 2 . 

In the Epistle of Barnabas (tentatively assigned 
by Bishop Lightfoot to between a.d. 70 and 79, and 
by others to about a.d. 130 — 131) we find the passage 
(c. 15), 'We keep the eighth day for rejoicing, in the 
which also Jesus rose from the dead.' The date of 
the Teaching of the Apostles is still reckoned by 
some scholars as sub judice. But, if it is rightly 
assigned to the first century, its testimony may be 
cited here. In it is the following passage : — * On 
the Lord's own day (Kara KvptaKrjv Se Kvplov) gather 
yourselves together and break bread, and give thanks, 
first confessing your transgressions, that your sacrifice 
may be pure ' (c. 14). 

The next evidence, in point of time, is a passage 
in the Epistle of Ignatius to the Magnesians (cc. 8, 9, 
10), in which the writer dissuades those to whom he 
wrote from observing sabbaths (inprcri o-afifiaTL&vTes) 
and urges them to live ' according to the Lord's day 
(Kara KvpiaKTjv) on which our life also rose through 

1 Acts xx. 7 ; 1 Cor. xvi. 2. 

2 The view that St John is here representing himself as rapt in 
vision to the time of judgment spoken of by St Paul (1 Cor. i. 8 ; 
2 Thess. ii. 2) is the only other interpretation which deserves 
serious consideration. (For the view mentioned see Hort, 
Apocalypse, p. 15.) But it does not, as it seems to the present 
writer, dislodge the commonly accepted view. 

1—2 



4 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

Him.' It is impossible to suppose that in early times 
the Lord's day was held to be a day of rest. The 
work of the servant and labouring class had to be 
done; and it has been reasonably conjectured that 
the assemblies of Christians before dawn were to meet 
the necessities of the situation. Lastly, the passage 
from the Apology of Justin Martyr (Ap. i. 67) is too 
well known to be cited in full. He describes to the 
Emperor the character and procedure of the Christian 
assemblies on 'the day of the sun/ which we know from 
other sources to have been the first day of the week. 
Writings of the Apostles or of the Prophets were 
read : the President of the assembly instructed and 
exhorted : bread, and wine and water were consecrated 
and distributed to those present and sent by the 
Deacons to the absent : alms were collected and 
deposited with the President for the relief of widows 
and orphans, the sick and the poor, prisoners and 
strangers. Later than Justin we need not go, as the 
evidence from all quarters pours in abundantly to 
establish the universal observance of ' the first day of 
the week,' 'Sunday,' 'the Lord's day,' as a day for 
worship and religious instruction 1 . 

The Sabbath {Saturday). 

Lack of positive evidence prevents us from speaking 
with any certainty as to whether there was among 

1 The Italian 'Domenica' and the French 'Dimanche' follow 
the language of the Latin Church in designating what we call 
' Sunday.' In the Greek Church ' the Lord's Day ' is still the term 
employed. 



THE WEEK 5 

Christians any recognised and approved observance 
of Saturday (the Sabbath) in the first, second and 
third centuries. There is no hint of such observance 
in early Christian literature ; and there are passages 
which rather go to discountenance the notion 1 . 

Duchesne, whose opinion deservedly carries much 
weight, comes to the conclusion that the observance 
of Saturday in the fourth century was not a survival 
of an attempt of primitive times to effect a conciliation 
between Jewish and Christian practices, but an insti- 
tution of comparatively late date 2 . Certainly one 
cannot speak confidently of the existence of Saturday 
as a day of religious observance among Christians 
before the fourth century. 

Epiphanius 3 , in the second half of the fourth 
century, speaks of synaxes being held in some places 
on the Sabbath; from which it may probably be 
inferred that it was not so in his time in Cyprus. 

In the Canons of the Council of Laodicea (which 
can hardly be placed earlier than about the middle of 
the fourth century, and is probably later) we find it 
enjoined that ' on the Sabbath the Gospels with other 
Scriptures shall be read' (16) ; that 'in Lent bread 
ought not to be offered, save only on the Sabbath 
and the Lord's day ' (49) ; and that ' in Lent the 
feasts of martyrs should not be kept, but that a 
commemoration of the holy martyrs should be made 
on Sabbaths and Lord's days' (50). Yet it was 

1 E.g. Epist. to Diognetus 4. 

2 Christian Worship, E. tr. 231. 

3 Expos. Fid. 24. 



6 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

forbidden 'to Judaize and be idle on the Sabbath/ 
while, ' if they can/ Christians are directed to rest 
on the Lord's day. The Apostolic Constitutions go 
further ; and, under the names of St Peter and St 
Paul, it is enjoined that servants should work only 
five days in the week, and be free from labour on the 
Sabbath and the Lord's day 'with a view to the 
teaching of godliness ' (viii. 33). Uncertain as are 
the date and origin of the Constitutions they may be 
regarded as in some measure reflecting the general 
sentiment in the East in the fifth, or possibly the 
close of the fourth century 1 . From these testimonies 
it appears that the Sabbath was a day of special 
religious observance, and that in the East it par- 
took of a festal character. Falling in with this way 
of regarding Saturday we find Canon 64 of the 
so-called Apostolic Canons (of uncertain date, but 
possibly early in the fifth century 2 ) declaring, c If 
any cleric be found fasting on the Lord's day, or 
on the Sabbath, except one only [that is, doubtless 
"the Great Sabbath," or Easter Eve], let him be 
deprived, and, if he be a layman, let him be segre- 
gated 3 .' The Apostolic Constitutions emphasise the 
position of the Sabbath by the exhortation that 
Christians should ' gather together especially on the 
Sabbath, and on the Lord's day, the day of the 
Resurrection' (ii. 59); and again, 'Keep the Sabbath 

1 See Maclean, Ancient Church Orders, p. 149 f. 

2 Ibid., p. 171 f . 

3 This last word (a<£o/cu£e<r0a>) points to a temporary deprival of 
communion. 



THE WEEK 7 

and the Lord's day as feasts, for the one is the 
commemoration of the Creation, the other of the 
Resurrection' (vii. 23 3 ). We find also that one of 
the canons of Laodicea referred to above is in sub- 
stance re-enacted at a much later date by the Council 
in Trullo (a.d. 692) in this form, that except on 
the Sabbath, the Lord's day, and the Feast of the 
Annunciation, the Liturgy of the Pre-sanctified should 
be said on all days in Lent (c. 52). 

In the city of Alexandria in the time of the 
historian Socrates the Eucharist was not celebrated 
on Saturday ; but other parts of Egypt followed the 
general practice of the East. Socrates says that 
Rome agreed with Alexandria in this respect 1 . 

It is certain that very commonly, though not 
universally, in the East the Sabbath was regarded 
as possessing the features of a weekly festival (with 
a eucharistic celebration) second in importance only 
to the Lord's day. And Gregory of Nyssa says, ' If 
thou hast despised the Sabbath, with what face wilt 
thou dare to behold the Lord's day... .They are 
sister days' (de Castigatione, Migne, P.Q. xlvi. 309). 

In the West we find also that the Sabbath was a 
day of special religious observance ; but there was a 
variety of local usage in regard to the mode of its 
observance. At Rome the Sabbath was a fast-day in 
the time of St Augustine 2 ; and the same is true of 
some other places ; but the majority of the Western 
Churches, like the East, did not so regard it. In 
North Africa there was a variety of practice, some 

1 H.E. v. 22. 2 Epist. xxxvi. 2, ad Casulanum. 



8 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

places observed the day as a fast, others as a feast. 
At Milan the day was not treated as a fast; and 
St Ambrose, in reply to a question put by Augustine 
at the instance of his mother Monnica, stated that 
he regarded the matter as one of local discipline, and 
gave the sensible rule to do in such matters at Rome 
as the Romans do 1 . In the early part of the fourth 
century the Spanish Council of Elvira corrected the 
error that every Sabbath should be observed as a 
fast 2 . 

As to the origin of the Saturday fast we are left 
almost wholly to conjecture. It has been supposed 
by some to be an exhibition of antagonism to Judaism, 
which regarded the Sabbath as a festival; while others 
consider that it is a continuation of the Friday fast, 
as a kind of preparatory vigil of the Lord's day. It 
is outside our scope to go into this question. 

A relic of the ancient position of distinction 
occupied by Saturday may perhaps be found in the 
persistence of the name ' Sabbatum ' in the Western 
service-books. Abstinence (from flesh) continued, 
*de mandato ecclesiae/ on Saturdays in the Roman 
Church. For Roman Catholics in England it ceased 
in 1830 by authority of Pope Pius VIII. 

This seems a convenient place for saying something as 
to the use of the word Feria in ecclesiastical language to 

1 Augustine, Ep. liv. 3, ad Bonifacium. 

2 Canon xxvi. 'Errorem placuit corrigi, ut omni sabbati die 
superpositiones celebremus.' On superpositio jejunii see D.C.A. 
It would seem that once a month (except in July and August, 
ob quorumdam infirmitatem) the added fast of Saturday was to be 
observed ; Canon xxni. 



THE WEEK 9 

designate an ordinary week-day. The names most com- 
monly given to the days of the week in the service-books 
and other ecclesiastical records are ' Dies Dominica ; (rarely 
'Dominicus') for the Lord's Day, or Sunday; 'Feria II' 
for Monday; 'Feria III' for Tuesday, and so on to Saturday 
which (with rare exceptions) is not Feria VII but 
1 Sabbatum.' 

Why the ordinary week-day is called ' Feria,' when in 
classical Latin 'feriae' was used for Mays of rest,' ' holidays,' 
' festivals,' is a question that cannot be answered with any 
confidence. A conjecture which seems open to various 
objections, though it has found supporters, is as follows : 
all the days of Easter week were holidays, ' feriatae ' ; and, 
this being the first week of the ecclesiastical year, the 
other weeks followed the mode of naming the days which 
had been used in regard to the first week. A fatal objec- 
tion to this theory, for which the authority of St Jerome has 
been claimed, is that we find 'feria' used, as in Tertullian, 
for an ordinary week-day long before we have any reason 
to think that there was any ordinance for the observance 
of the whole of Easter week by a cessation from labour 1 . 

Another conjecture, presented however with too much 
confidence, is that put forward on the authority of Isidore 
of Seville 2 by the learned Henri de Yalois ( Valesius). He 
alleges that the ancient Christians, receiving, as they did, 
the week of seven days from the Jews, imitated the Jewish 
practice, which used the expression 'the second of the 
Sabbath,' 'the third of the Sabbath,' and so on for the 
days of the week: that 'Feria' means a day of rest, in 
effect the same as 'Sabbath,' and that in this way the 
'second Feria' and 'third Feria,' etc., came to be used for 
the second and third days of the week 3 . 

i Tertullian (de Jejuniis 2) speaks of ' stations ' being held on 
the fourth and sixth feria. 

2 De Natura Berum, c. 3. 

3 See the Notes of Valesius on Eusebius' Martyrs of Palestine 
(Paris, 1659), pp. 173 f. 



10 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

The astrological names for the days of the week, as of 
the Sun, of the Moon, of Mars, of Mercury, etc., were 
generally avoided by Christians ; but they are not wholly 
unknown in Christian writers, and sometimes appear even 
in Christian epitaphs. 

In the ecclesiastical records of the Greeks the first 
day of the week is 'the Lord's day'; and the seventh, 
the Sabbath, as in the West. But Friday is Parasceve 
(7rapa(TK€vrj), a name which in the Latin Church is con- 
fined to one Friday in the year, the Friday of the Lord's 
Passion, which day in the Eastern Church is known as 
'the Great Parasceve.' With these exceptions the days 
of the week are 'the second,' 'the third,' 'the fourth,' etc., 
the word 'day' being understood. 

It is worth recording that among the Portuguese the 
current names for the week-days are : segunda feira, terga 
feira, etc. 

Wednesday and Friday. 

Long prior to any clear evidence for the special 
observance among Christians of the last day of the 
week we find testimonies to a religious character 
attaching to the fourth and sixth days. 

The devout Jews were accustomed to observe a 
fast twice a week, on the second and fifth days, 
Monday and Thursday 1 ; and these days, together 
with the Christian fasts substituted for them, are 
referred to in the Teaching of the Apostles (8), ' Let 
not your fastings be with the hypocrites, for they fast 
on the second and fifth day of the week ; but do ye 
keep your fast on the fourth and parasceve (the 
sixth).' In the Shepherd of Hermas we find the 
writer relating that he was fasting and holding a 

1 Compare Luke xviii. 12. 



THE WEEK 11 

station 1 . And this peculiar term is applied by 
Tertullian to fasts (whether partial or entire we need 
not here discuss) observed on the fourth and sixth 
days of the week 2 . Clement of Alexandria, though 
not using the word station, speaks of fasts being held 
on the fourth day of the week and on the parasceve 3 . 

At a much later date than the authorities cited 
above we find the Apostolic Canons decreeing under 
severe penalties that, unless for reasons of bodily 
infirmity, not only the clergy but the laity must fast 
on the fourth day of the week and on the sixth 
(parasceve). And the rule of fasting on Wednesdays 
and Fridays still obtains in the Eastern Church 4 . 

These two days were marked by the assembling 
of Christians for worship. But the character of the 
service was not everywhere the same. Duchesne 5 
has exhibited the facts thus : In Africa in the time of 
Tertullian the Eucharist was celebrated, and it was 
so at Jerusalem towards the close of the fourth 
century. In the Church of Alexandria the Eucharist 
was not celebrated on these days ; but the Scriptures 
were read and interpreted. And in this matter, as 
in many others, the Church at Rome probably agreed 
with Alexandria. It is certain, at least as regards 
Friday, that the mysteries were not publicly cele- 
brated on these days at Rome about the beginning 
of the fifth century. The observance of Friday as 
a day of abstinence is still of obligation in the West. 

1 JSimil. v. 1, arTaTioova ex«>. 2 Be Jejuniis 14. 

3 Strom, vii. p. 877, Potter's edit. On conjectures as to the 
origin of the word statio in this sense, see B.C. A. 

4 See p. 91. 5 Christian Worship, E. tr. 230. 



CHAPTER II 

DAYS OF THE MARTYRS 

We now pass from features of every week to days 
and seasons of yearly occurrence. 

In point of time the celebrations connected with 
the Pascha are the earliest to emerge of sacred days 
observed annually by the whole Church. But for 
reasons of convenience it has been thought better to 
defer the consideration of the difficult questions 
relating to the Easter controversies till the origin of 
the days of Martyrs and Saints has been dealt with. 

The Kalendar in some of its later stages exhibits 
a highly artificial elaboration. But in its beginnings it 
was, to a large extent, the outcome of a natural and 
spontaneous feeling which could not fail to remember 
in various localities the cruel deaths of men and 
women who had suffered for the Faith with courage 
and constancy in such places, or their neighbourhoods. 
The origins of the Kalendar show in various churches, 
widely separated, the natural desire to commemorate 
their own local martyrs on the days on which they 
had actually suffered. 

As regards the order of time there is ample reason 
to convince us that the commemorations of martyrs 



DAYS OF THE MARTYRS 13 

were features of Church life much earlier than those 
of St Mary the Virgin, of most of the Apostles, and 
even of many of the festivals of the Lord Himself. 

The marks of antiquity that characterise generally 
the older Kalendars and Martyrologies are (1) the 
comparative paucity of entries, (2) the fewness of 
festivals of the Virgin, (3) the fewness of saints who 
were not martyrs, (4) the absence of the title ' saint/ 
and (5) the absence of feasts in Lent. 

Again, the local character of the observance of the 
days of martyrs is a marked feature of the earlier 
records which illustrate the subject. Now and then 
the name of some martyr of pre-eminent distinction 
in other lands finds its way into the lists ; but it 
remains generally true that in each place the martyrs 
and saints of that place and its neighbourhood form 
the great body of those commemorated. And in 
addition to the natural feeling that prompted the 
remembrance of those more particularly associated 
with a particular place, the fact that the commemo- 
rations were originally observed by religious services 
in cemeteries, at the tombs or burial places of the 
martyrs, tended at first to discountenance the com- 
memoration of the martyrs of other places whose 
story was known only by report, whether written 
or oral. 

The day of a martyr's death was by an exercise 
of the triumphant faith of the Church known as his 
birthday (natale, or dies natalis, or natalitia). It 
was regarded as the day of his entrance into a new 
and better world. The expression occurs in its 



14 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

Greek form as early as the letter of the Church of 
Smyrna concerning the martyrdom of Polycarp (c. 18). 

There can be no doubt that at an early date 
records were kept of the day of the death of martyrs. 
Cyprian required that even the death-days of those 
who died in prison for the faith should be communi- 
cated to him with a view to his offering an oblation 
on that day {Ep. xii. (xxxvii.) 2). It is in this way 
probably that the earliest Kalendars of the Church 
originated. 

We purpose dealing more particularly with the 
early Roman Kalendars. The earliest martyrology 
that has survived is contained in a Roman record 
transcribed in a.d. 354. It is known, sometimes as 
the Liberian Martyrology (from the name of Liberius, 
who was bishop of Rome at the time), sometimes as 
the Bucherian Martyrology, from the name of the 
scholar who first made it known to the learned world 1 , 
and not uncommonly as the Pkilocalian, from the 
name of the scribe. It presents many interesting, 
and some perplexing features, which cannot be dealt 
with here. We must content ourselves with noticing 
that, besides recording, as in a serviceable almanack, 
several pagan festivals, it marks the days of the month 
of the burials (depositiones) of the bishops of Rome 
from a.d. 254 to a.d. 354, and also the burial-days of 
martyrs, twenty-five in number. In both lists the 
cemeteries at Rome where the burials took place are 
noted. But there are also entered three ecclesiastical 

1 Aegidius Bucherius (Gilles Boucher), a learned French Jesuit, 
whose Be doctrina temporum appeared at Antwerp in 1634. 








;: 



Ancient Syriac Martyrology, written AD. 412 

(Brit. Mus. Or. Add. 12150, fol. 252 v, 11. 1-20, col. 1.) The 
plate shows the entries from St Stephen's Day to Epiphany. 




DAYS OF THE MARTYRS 15 

commemorations which do not mark entombments, 
(1) £ viij Kal. Jan. (Dec. 25) Natus Christus in 
Bethleem Judeae'; (2) 'viij Kal. Mart. (Feb. 22) 
Natale (sic) Petri de Cathedra ' ; (3) ' Nonis Martii 
(March 7) Perpetuae et Felicitatis AfricaeV The 
appearance of St Perpetua and St Felicitas in a 
characteristically Roman document is a striking 
testimony to the fame of these two African sufferers 
for the Faith 2 . The use of the word natale in 
connexion with St Peters chair not improbably marks 
the dedication of a church ; and, at all events at 
a later period, the word seems sometimes used as 
equivalent simply to a festival, or perhaps a festival 
marking an origin or beginning — as, for example, 
Natale Calicis, of which something will be said here- 
after (p. 40). Easter could not appear in the Kalendar 
properly so-called ; but the document contains cycles 
for the calculation of Easter, and a list of the days on 
which it would fall from a.d. 312 to a.d. 412. 

Early Kalendars would be of much value in our 
enquiries ; but they are few in number. The following 
three deserve notice. (1) The Syrian Martyrology 
first published by Dr W. Wright in the Journal of 
Sacred Literature (Oct. 1866). It was written in 
a.d. 411 — 12, but represents an original of perhaps 
about a.d. 380. It is Arian in origin, and has 
elements that show connexions with Alexandria, 



1 Ruinart's Acta Martyrum (1731), p. 541, and Lietzmann, Three 
oldest Martyrologies, 1904. 

2 It wUl be remembered that Felicitas and Perpetua are named 
in the Canon of the Koman Mass. 



16 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

Antioch, and Nicomedia ; and its range of martyrs 
is much wider than that of other early documents 
of the kind. Yet of "Western martyrs we find only 
in Africa Perpetua and Satornilos and ten other 
martyrs 1 (March 7) and 'Akistus (?Xystus II) bishop 
of Rome' (Aug. 1). We find St Peter and St Paul 
on Dec. 28 ; St John and St James on Dec. 27 ; and 
'St Stephen, apostle' on the 26th 2 . (2) The Kalendar 
of Polemius Silvius, bishop of Sedunum, in the upper 
valley of the Rhone (a.d. 448). It contains the 
birthdays of the Emperors and some of the more 
eminent of the heathen festivals, such as the Luper- 
calia and Caristia, but with a view, apparently, of 
supplanting them by Christian commemorations. The 
Christian festivals recorded are few in number, those 
of our Lord being Christmas, Epiphany, and the fixed 
dates, March 25 for the Crucifixion, and March 27 
for the Resurrection. There are only six saints' days. 
The depositio of Peter and Paul on Feb. 22 ; Vincent, 
Lawrence, Hippolytus, Stephen, and the Maccabees 
on their usual days. Other features of interest must 
be passed over 3 . (3) The Carthaginian Kalendar 4 " 
has been assigned as probably about a.d. 500 6 . It 

1 Satornilos is presumably a transcriptional variant of Satur- 
ninus. 

2 Duchesne has assisted K. Graffin in editing this Martyrology 
in Acta Sanctorum Boll., Nov. n., under the title Breviariuni 
Syriacum. 

8 See Mommsen, Corpus Inscript. Lat. I. 333. 

4 Lietzmann has printed the text in The Three Oldest Martyr- 
ologies. See also Ruinart, Acta Marty rum, pp. 541 f. 

5 [From the mention of Eugenius, bishop of Carthage (f 505), 
Lietzmann concludes that the Kalendar received its present form 
shortly after the death of Eugenius. Edd.] 



DAYS OF THE MARTYRS 17 

is thus described by Bishop J. Wordsworth, 'It 
has, in the Eastern manner, no entries between 
February 16 and April 19, i.e. during Lent. Its 
Saints are mostly local, but some twenty are Roman, 
and a few other Italian, Sicilian, and Spanish. It 
also marks SS. John Baptist (June 24), Maccabees, 
Luke [Oct. 13], Andrew, Christmas, Stephen [Dec. 26], 
John Baptist [probably an error of the pen for John 
the Evangelist] and James (Dec. 27) ['the Apostle 
whom Herod slew '], Infants [Dec. 28] and Epiphany 
[sanctum Epefania] 1 .' It may be added that this 
Kalendar marks the depositiones of seven bishops of 
Carthage, not martyrs, whose anniversaries were kept. 

In one of the African Councils of the fourth 
century it was enacted that the Acts of the martyrs 
should be read in the church on their anniversaries. 
But Rome was slow in adopting this practice 2 . 

It will be seen that as time went on the strictly 
local character of the martyrs commemorated was 
invaded by a desire to record the famous sufferers of 
other parts of the Christian world. Rome, with its 
characteristic conservatism in matters liturgical, seems 
to have been slower than other places to yield to this 
impulse. At Hippo we find Augustine commemora- 
ting, beside local martyrs, the Roman Lawrence and 
Agnes, the Spanish Vincent and Fructuosus, and the 
Milanese Protasius and Gervasius whose bones (as 
was believed) had been recently discovered. He also 
commemorated the Maccabees, St Stephen, and both 

1 Ministry of Or ace, 65. 

2 See Hefele n. 400, English translation. 

D. 2 



18 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

the Nativity and Decollation of the Baptist. On the 
other hand in the laudatory sermons that have come 
down to us we find Chrysostom at Antioch com- 
memorating only the saints of Antioch, and Basil, at 
Caesarea in Cappadocia, only those of his own 
country. 

The Sacramentary, which is called after Pope Leo 
(a.d. 440 — 461), shows signs of a somewhat later date; 
but it is unquestionably a Roman book; and the 
Kalendar which we can construct from it represents 
the Kalendar of Rome as it was not later than about 
the middle of the sixth century. It gives us the 
following days ; but it must be observed that the 
months of January, February, March, and part of 
April are unfortunately missing 1 . 

The first is April 14, Tiburtius (a Roman martyr). 
There follow < Paschal time': April 23, George (Eastern) [?] 2 ; 
Dedication of the Basilica of St Peter, the Apostle; the 
Ascension of the Lord; the day before Pentecost; the 
Sunday of Pentecost; the fast of the fourth month; 
June 24, natale of St John Baptist; June 26, natale of 
SS. John and Paul (two Romans, brothers, martyrs under 
Julian) ; June 29, natale of the Apostles Peter and Paul 
(at Rome) ; July 10, natale of seven martyrs who are 
named (all at Rome; and the cemeteries where their 
bodies rest are named) ; Aug. 3 3 , natale of St Stephen 

1 Liturgia Romana Vetus, Muratori i. 38 — 40. See as to the 
date of the Sacramentary, Duchesne, Chr. Worship, E. tr. pp. 
137 — 139. It has been edited by C. L. Feltoe (Sacramentarium 
Leonianum, Cambridge, 1896). 

2 [' Georgii ' is a conjecture of Muratori. The MS. has ' GregorhV 
See Feltoe's note, op. cit. p. 177. Edd.] 

8 [But Feltoe reads 'iiii. non. aug.,' which corresponds with the 
ordinary date, Aug. 2. The actual prayers, however, in the Leonine 



DAYS OF THE MARTYRS 19 

(bishop of Rome and martyr, more commonly com- 
memorated on Aug. 2); Aug. 6, natale of St Xystus and 
of Felicissimus and Agapitus (all martyrs at Rome); 
Aug. 10, natale of St Lawrence (Rome) ; Aug. 13, natale 
of SS. Hippolytus and Pontianus (Romans) ; Aug. 30, 
natale of Adauctus and Felix (at Rome) ; Sept. 14, natale 
of SS. Cornelius and Cyprian (the former bishop of Rome, 
the latter bishop of Carthage, his contemporary); Sept. 16, 
natale of St Euphemia (at Rome); Fast of the seventh 
month ; Sept. 30, natale (sic) of the basilica of the Angel 
in Salaria (on the Via Salaria : evidently for the foundation 
or the dedication of a church at Rome, probably under the 
name of St Michael) ; Depositio of St Silvester (bishop of 
Rome, no date: in the Bucherian Martyrology it is at 
Dec. 31); Nov. 8 (or 9), natale of the four crowned saints 
(all at Rome); Nov. 22, natale of St Caecilia (Roman 
martyr); Nov. 23, natale of SS. Clement and Felicitas 
(both Roman martyrs); Nov. 24, natale of SS. Chrysogonus 
and Gregorius (the first, a Roman martyr, the second, 
uncertain 1 ); Nov. 30, natale of St Andrew, Apostle; 
Dec. 25, natale of the Lord ; and of the martyrs, Pastor, 
Basilius, Jovianus, Victorinus, Eugenia, Felicitas, and 
Anastasia (Eugenia was perhaps the Roman lady mar- 
tyred with Agape; Anastasia was of Roman origin, though 
she suffered death in Illyria: her name appears in the 
canon of the Roman mass. The persons intended by the 
other names are more uncertain); Dec. 27, natale of 
St John, Evangelist ; Dec. 28, natale of the Innocents. 

It has been thought well to give in full this list, 
defective though it is (as lacking the opening months 
of the year). It exhibits indeed a large preponderance 

Sacramentary refer to St Stephen the protomartyr, whose * Inven- 
tion' the Roman Kalendar still keeps on Aug. 3. See Feltoe, 
pp. 85 f., with notes. Edd.] 

1 Gregorius disappears from this day in the Gregorian Kalendar. 



20 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

of celebrations of local interest ; but there are clear 
indications that already the martyrs of other places 
than Rome are securing themselves positions in the 
Roman Kalendar. 

The collection of masses and other liturgical 
offices known as the Gelasian Sacramentary are not 
without interest in illustrating the development of 
the Kalendar, more particularly among the Franks. 
But we pass on to consider the features of the 
distinctively Roman service book, which, by a some- 
what misleading name, has been called the Gregorian 
Sacramentary, In its present form (though it 
contains many ancient elements) it is probably not 
earlier than the close of the eighth century. Omitting 
notices of moveable days, and exhibiting the dates by 
the days of the mqjith in our modern fashion, the 
Kalendar runs as follows 1 , some remarks being added 
within marks of parenthesis. 

January. 1 . Octava Domini (the octave of Christmas). 
6. Epiphania (called in the older Roman Kalendar 
* Theophania,' as by the Greeks). 14. St Felix ' in Pincis ' 
(on the Pincian). 16. St Marcellus, Pope. 18. St Prisca 
(at Rome). 20. SS. Fabian and Sebastian (both at Rome). 
21. St Agnes (at Rome) 2 . 22. St Vincent (Spain). 28. 
Second of St Agnes (Octave). 

February. 2. Ypapante, or Purification of St Mary. 
5. St Agatha (Sicily: a church at Rome dedicated to her). 
14. St Valentine (presbyter at Rome). 

1 See Muratori's Liturg. Rom. Vet. i. 48 — 50. 

2 It will interest English students to know that the synod of 
Worcester, under Cantilupe, in a.d. 1240 appointed this day, with 
three others, St Margaret's, St Lucy's, and St Agatha's, to he free 
from labour for women. 



BAYS OF THE MARTYRS 21 

March. 12. St Gregory, Pope. 25. Annunciation of 
St Mary. 

April. 14. SS. Tiburtius and Valerian (at Rome). 
23. St George (Eastern: church 'in Velabro' at Rome). 
28. St Vitalis (of Ravenna : a church at Rome). 

May. 1. SS. Philip and James, Apostles. 3. SS. 
Alexander, Eventius and Theodulus (Pope, and two pres- 
byters at Rome). 6. Natale of St John before the Latin 
gate (Rome). 10. SS. Gordian and Epimachus (both at 
Rome). 12. St Pancratius (at Rome, where a church 
was dedicated to him). 13. Natale of St Mary 'ad 
Martyres' (dedication of the Pantheon at Rome by 
Boniface IV). 25. St Urban, Pope. 

June. 1. Dedication of the Basilica of St Nicomedes 
(at Rome). 2. SS. Marcellinus and Peter (at Rome: a 
church in their honour is said to have been erected by 
the Emperor Cons tan tine on the Via Lavicana). 18. SS. 
Marcus and Marcellianus (both at Rome). 19. SS. 
Protasius and Gervasius (Milan). 24. Natale of St John 
Baptist. 26. SS. John and Paul (two brothers at Rome). 
28. St Leo, Pope. 29. Natale of SS. Peter and Paul, 
Apostles (Rome). 30. Natale of St Paul (the Apostle). 

July. 2. SS. Processus and Martinianus (legendary 
soldier-martyrs at Rome). 10. Natale of the Seven 
Brethren (at Rome). 29. SS. Felix, Simplicius, Faustinus 
and Beatrix (Pope Felix II; the others commemorated at 
Rome on the Via Portuensis). 30. SS. Abdon and Sennen 
(martyrs at Rome). 

August. 1 . St Peter ' in Vincula ' (more commonly ' ad 
Vincula': it is probable that the date marks the dedication 
of a church at Rome). 2. St Stephen, bishop (of Rome). 
5. SS. Xystus, bishop, Felicissimus and Agapitus (all of 
Rome). 8. St Cyriacus (deacon, at Rome: perhaps marks 
the date of his translation by Pope Marcellus). 10. 



22 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

Natale of St Lawrence (Rome). 1 1. St Tiburtius (martyred 
outside Rome on the Via Lavicana). 13. St Hippolytus 
(martyr according to the legend at Rome). 14. St Eusebius, 
presbyter (at Rome). 15. Assumption of St Mary. 17. 
St Agapitus (at Praeneste). 22. St Timotheus (martyr 
at Rome). 28. St Hermes (at Rome). 29. St Sabina 
(virgin -martyr at Rome). 30. SS. Felix and Adauctus 
(both at Rome). 

September. 8. Nativity of St Mary. 11. SS. Protus 
and Hyacinthus (both at Rome). 14. SS. Cornelius and 
Cyprian : also Exaltation of Holy Cross (Cornelius, Pope, 
Cyprian of Carthage). 15. Natale of St Nicomedes 
(presbyter martyr at Rome). 16. Natale of St Euphemia, 
and of SS. Lucia and Geminianus (all at Rome). 27. SS. 
Cosmas and Damian (Eastern). 29. Dedication of the 
Basilica of the Holy Angel Michael. 

October. 7. Natale of St Marcus, Pope. 14. Natale 
of St Callistus, Pope. 

November. 1. St Caesarius (an African deacon mar- 
tyred in Campania). 8. The four crowned saints (at 
Rome). 9. Natale of St Theodorus (Asia Minor). 11. 
Natale of St Menna: likewise St Martin, bishop (Menna, 
Asia Minor : Martin of Tours). 22. St Caecilia (Roman). 
23. St Clement : likewise St Felicitas (both Roman). 24. 
St Chrysogonus (Roman). 29. St Saturninus (a Roman, 
martyred at Toulouse). 30. St Andrew, Apostle. 

December. 13. St Lucia (Syracuse). 25. Nativity 
of the Lord. 26. Natale of St Stephen. 27. St John, 
Evangelist. 28. Holy Innocents. 31. St Silvester, Pope. 

When we examine these lists we find (1) the 
principal festivals of the Lord, of His Mother, and of 
His Apostles placed as they are still noted in the 
Kalendar. It may be observed that Jan. 1 is not 



DAYS OF THE MARTYRS 23 

styled the Circumcision ; and there is no reference to 
the Circumcision in the collect. In the mass for the 
Epiphan^ the leading of the Gentiles by a star and 
the gifts of the Magi are the prominent features. The 
use of the name Ypapante as the first name for the 
Purification (Feb. 2) suggests the Eastern origin of the 
festival. We find (2) the great majority of the saints 
recorded to be Roman martyrs — or of martyrs con- 
nected with Rome, either in fact or by legend ; but 
(3) there are a few famous martyrs from other regions 
of the world, as St George, St Vincent, SS. Cosmas 
and Damian, and St Lucy, of Dec. 13. And Martin 
of Tours has a place. We also find that some of the 
obscurer saints of the earlier list disappear. Frequent 
pilgrimages to the East, together with the interchange 
of literary correspondence between the churches, are 
sufficient to account for the appearance of the Oriental 
martyrs. The leading features of the Western 
Kalendar, as it prevailed in the mediaeval period, and 
has subsisted to the present day, are already apparent. 
It will be seen that All Saints does not appear on 
Nov. 1 ; and yet it was certainly observed in many 
churches in England, France, and Germany during 
the eighth century. It is placed at Nov. 1 in the 
Metrical Martyrology attributed to Bede, who died 
in a.d. 735. Though therefore this Martyrology, as 
we now possess it, shows signs of having been re- 
handled, it seems hazardous to attribute the origin of 
the festival, as is done by some, to the dedication of 
a church at Rome ' in honorem Omnium Sanctorum ' 
by Pope Gregory III (a.d. 731—741). 



24 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

Much obscurity attends the origin of All Souls' 
Day. It would seem that Amalarius of Metz, early 
in the ninth century, had inserted in his Kalendar 
an anniversary commemoration of all the departed, 
and this was probably (as the context suggests) im- 
mediately after All Saints' Day ; but the practice of 
observing the day did not at once become general, 
and the earliest clear testimony to Nov. 2 does not 
emerge till the end of the tenth century, when Odilo, 
abbot of Clugny, stimulated by a vision of the 
sufferings of souls in purgatory, reported to him by 
a pilgrim returning from Jerusalem, enjoined on the 
monastic churches subject to Clugny the observance 
of Nov. 2. The practice rapidly spread. 

The dominant influence of the Roman Church in 
Europe carried eventually the main features of the 
Roman Kalendar into all regions of the West. In 
early times at Rome the anniversary of a martyr was 
ordinarily kept, not in the various churches of the 
city and suburbs, but at the particular cemetery or 
catacomb where he was buried, or at the tomb within 
some church which had been erected over the place 
where his remains rested. Outside the walls, and at 
various distances along the great roads that led from 
the city, most of these commemorations were cele- 
brated. As M. Batiffol has put it, with substan- 
tial correctness, 'the old Roman Sanctorale is the 
Sanctorale of the cemeteries 1 / It is a striking and 
impressive illustration of the looking of the Western 
peoples to Rome for guidance in matters of religion 

1 Histoire du Breviaire romain, p. 132. 



DAYS OF THE MARTYRS 25 

that even obscure saints buried in the cemeteries of 
the neighbourhood of the Apostolic See now have 
places in the religious commemorations of all the 
remotest Churches of the Roman obedience. 

The study of the origins of the Kalendar of the 
city of Rome illustrates the general proposition that 
the martyrdoms of a particular city or district form 
the main feature of each local Kalendar. To enter 
into detail in respect to the early Kalendars of the 
other provinces and dioceses of Europe, even when 
the scanty evidence surviving makes the enquiry 
possible, is too large a task to be attempted here. 

The account of the commemorations of the early 
martyrs may be brought to a close by calling atten- 
tion to a festival of general and perhaps universal 
observance before the fifth century — the festival of 
the pre-Christian martyrs, the seven Maccabees, on 
Aug. 1. It was not unnatural in the age of persecu- 
tion, or when the memories of the great persecutions 
were still fresh, to fasten upon the Old Testament 
story of heroic constancy. After the Feast of St 
Peter's Chains in the West, and the Procession of the 
Holy Cross in the East had displaced it from a 
position of primary importance, it was not wholly 
forgotten; and even now in both East and West in 
a subsidiary manner the memory of the Maccabees is 
still preserved in the services of the Church on Aug. 1. 
Chrysostom speaks of the celebration being attended 
in his day by a great concourse of the faithful, and 
we possess three homilies of his for the festival. 
Augustine shows us that the festival was observed in 



26 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

Africa in his time, and mentions that there was a 
church called after the Maccabees at Antioch, a city 
named, he makes a point to inform us, after their 
persecutor, Antiochus Epiphanes. There are still 
extant sermons for the festival preached by Gregory 
Nazianzen, and, at a later date, by Pope Leo the 
Great. 



CHAPTER III 

THE LORD'S NATIVITY: THE EPIPHANY: THE 
FESTIVALS WHICH IN EARLY TIMES FOL- 
LOWED IMMEDIATELY ON THE NATIVITY 

It is certain that the assigning of the birth of the 
Lord to Dec. 25 appears first in the West ; and it is 
not till the last quarter of the fourth century that we 
find it becoming established in some parts of the 
East. St Chrysostom in a homily delivered in a.d. 386 
distinctly relates that it was about ten years earlier 
the festival of Dec. 25 came to be observed at 
Antioch, and that the festival had been observed in 
the West from early times (avioOev) 1 . At Constanti- 
nople the festival was kept on Dec. 25, apparently 
for the first time, in a.d. 379 or 380 ; and about the 
same time it appears in Cappadocia, as we learn from 
the funeral oration on Basil the Great pronounced by 
his brother, Gregory of Nyssa. At Alexandria this 
date was adopted before a.d. 432. At Jerusalem, 
however, the Nativity was observed on Jan. 6 not only 
in the time of the Pilgrimage of * Silvia/ but, if we 
may credit the Egyptian monk Cosmas Indicopleustes, 

1 in Diem Natal. 1. 



28 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

even as late as at the middle of the sixth century. 
This writer relates that the people of Jerusalem, 
arguing from Luke iii. 23 (where, as he interprets 
the passage, Jesus is said to be beginning to be 
thirty years of age at His baptism) celebrated the 
Nativity together with the Baptism on Jan. 6 1 . 

But when did the observance of Dec. 25 make its 
appearance in the West ? It must have been a well- 
marked festival at Rome when it appeared in the 
Bucherian Kalendar in a.d. 336 (see p. 15). And 
about one hundred years earlier (as we learn from his 
commentaries on Daniel) Hippolytus was led to infer, 
partly from a belief (however it originated) that the 
Incarnation took place at the Passover, and partly 
by a process of calculation with the help of his cycle, 
that the actual Incarnation took place on March 25 
in the year of the world 5500 (or B.C. 3), and 
consequently the Nativity on Dec. 25 2 . 

The Bishop of Salisbury (J. Wordsworth) offers 
an ingenious conjecture which may possibly point to 
the early Eastern practice of commemorating the 
Nativity on Jan. 6 having originated in a similar way. 
Sozomen, the historian, writing in the fifth century, 
states that the Montanists always celebrated the 
pascha on the eighth day before the Ides of April 
{i.e. April 6), if it fell on a Sunday, otherwise on the 



1 Topograph. Christ, v. 194 (Migne, P. G. lxxxviii. 197). 

2 See the late Dr George Salmon's masterly article ' The Com- 
mentary of Hippolytus on Daniel ' in Hermathena, vol. vin. 1893, 
and Bishop J. Wordsworth's exposition in the Ministry of Grace, 
pp. 393—398. 



COMMEMORATIONS OF THE LORD. I 29 

following Sunday (H.K vii. 18). The Bishop thinks 
that the belief that April 6 was the proper day of the 
pascha 'may probably have been an opinion quite 
unconnected with their [the Montanists'] sect.' But 
he rightly admits that 'actual facts are not yet 
forthcoming 1 .' 

Conjectures of this kind, though at present un- 
supported, are well worth remembering, if for no other 
reason, because students of early Christian literature 
are thus put on the alert to note any testimonies 
which make for, or else go to invalidate, the suggestion 
offered. I may add that the Montanist notion, as 
recorded by Sozomen, that the creation of the sun 
in the heavens took place on April 6, is of a kind 
that would well fall in, among fanciful speculators, 
with the notion that the Incarnation also took place 
on the same day 2 . 

Why this time of the year, late in December or 
early in January, was assigned for the Nativity is a 
question which it is not possible to answer with 
confidence. It is conceivable that the insecure and 
blundering argument alleged, among others, by Chry- 
sostom may have had weight. He supposes that 
Zacharias, the father of the Baptist, was the High 

1 Ministry of Grace, 399. 

2 There are unfortunately some grave doubts as to the correct 
text of Sozomen, and as to the accuracy of his computation. See 
what is said by Ussher in his Dissertation de Macedonum et 
Asianorum anno solari, c. 2. Compare also Jerome's Commentary 
on Ezekiel where the time of the prophet's vision (thirtieth year, 
fourth month, fifth day, i. 1) is set forth as corresponding to the 
day of the Lord's baptism and Epiphany. Jerome makes the fourth 
month * of the orientals ' correspond to the January of the Romans. 



30 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

Priest, and that he had entered the Holy of Holies 
on the day of Atonement when the angel appeared to 
him. The day of Atonement was in September. 
Six months later (Luke i. 26) the Annunciation was 
made to St Mary; and after nine months the Saviour 
was born. 

By others it has been suggested that the festival 
of Christmas on Dec. 25 did not originate in any 
such calculations; but was suggested by the pagan 
festival Natalis Solis Invicti marked at that day. 
The solstice was passed. The sun was entering on 
its new increases. 'The Light of the world/ 'the 
Sun of righteousness ' was to take the place of the 
sun-god in the heavens 1 . 

The Theophany, or Epiphany (Jan. 6), is, like its 
name, as characteristically Eastern in its origin as 
the feast of the Nativity (Dec. 25) is Western ; but 
when it passed into the West it was in thought, 
either at the outset or certainly soon, separated from 
the Nativity; and eventually, while the baptism of 
Christ was not ignored, the main stress of liturgical 
allusion was on the visit of the Magi, so that the 
festival is not uncommonly designated simply as the 
feast of the Three Kings. In the East the dominant 
thought is the manifestation of Christ's divinity at 
his baptism : and in the Basilian Menology the day 
is simply named 'The Baptism of our Lord Jesus 
Christ/ And it is to this connexion, baptism among 
the Greeks being known as 'illumination/ that has 

1 This view (fanciful though it seems) should not be summarily- 
dismissed ; see Kellner, pp. 101 — 2. 



COMMEMORATIONS OF THE LORD. I 31 

been attributed another name for the day, 'the lights ' 

(rd (/xora) 1 . 

It is not improbable that the feast of the Epiphany 
made its way to the West, through the churches of 
Southern Gaul, whose affinities with the East are 
recognised facts of history. At all events it is in 
connexion with Gaul that we find the first reference 
to the Epiphany in the West. The pagan historian 
Ammianus Marcellinus, in his account of the Emperor 
Julian in a.d. 361 visiting a Christian church at 
Vienne, says that it happened on the day in the 
month of January which Christians call ' Epiphania ' 
(Hist xxi. 2). 

The Epiphany was observed in the African Church 
by the orthodox in the time of Augustine, but he 
tells us that the Donatists did not observe it, 'because 
they love not unity, nor do they communicate with 
the Eastern Church/ The latter expression falls in 
with the supposition that the West derived the 
festival from the East. In the ancient Kalendar called 
the Kalendar of Carthage (unfortunately of uncertain 
date) we find at Jan. 6 the entry ' Sanctum Epefania ' 
(sic). In Spain, as we learn from the canons of the 
Council of Saragossa (can. 4), the festival was recog- 
nised as a considerable commemoration before a.d. 380. 
For Rome, we have to note the silence of the Bucherian 
Kalendar; but for the fifth century we have the 
testimony of Pope Leo, and we possess no fewer than 

1 [According to Clement of Alexandria {Strom, i. 145, 146) the 
Basilidians kept Jan. 6 as the festival of the Baptism, and it was 
preceded by a Vigil. Edd.] 



32 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

eight sermons of his upon the festival of the Epiphany ; 
in these the manifestation of Christ to the Magi is 
the truth upon which he chiefly enlarges. Elsewhere 
in the West we have references to other manifestations 
of the Deity of Christ, as at His baptism, and His 
first miracle at Cana. But generally, as in the East 
the baptism, so in the West the manifestation to 
the Gentiles is the leading note of preachers or 
theologians 1 . 

Among the Armenians the Epiphany is reckoned 
one of the five chief festivals : it is preceded by a 
week's fast, and is followed by an octave. It is by 
them still reckoned as the day of the Nativity. 

1 It may interest the English student to be given a sketch of 
the principal features of the Sarum Breviary and Missal in relation 
to the subject of the festival. At Mattins the first three lessons 
are from Isaiah (Iv. 1 — 5, 6 — 12 ; lx. 1 — 7), speaking of light, and 
the calling of the Gentiles. The versicle after the 1st lesson is 
* and the nations, shall walk in thy light, and kings in the bright- 
ness of thy rising.' The response and versicle after the 2nd lesson 
touch on the gifts of gold and incense from Saba ; ' the kings of the 
Arabs and of Saba shall bring gifts'; and this note is sounded 
again and again. The 4th, 5th and 6th lessons are from a sermon 
of St Leo, and the responses and versicles relate to the visit of the 
Magi. In the response and versicle to the 7th lesson the baptism 
of Christ is recounted ; and subsequently there are several references 
to the baptism. The collect is solely confined to the thought of the 
revelation of God's only begotten Son to the Gentiles by the guiding 
of a star ; and this is the dominant (though not exclusive) feature 
of the rest of the service. During the octave the baptism is given 
greater prominence ; and on the octave itself the miracle at Cana 
has an important place, as well as the baptism. In the Missal 
the propers are confined to the revelation to the Gentiles and the 
visit of the Magi. But on the octave and the Sunday within the 
octave the baptism of Christ forms the leading thought. 



COMMEMORATIONS OF THE LORD. I 33 



The festivals of the days immediately following 
Christmas, 

We see that in the Gregorian Kalendar the com- 
memorations of St Stephen (Dec. 26), St John the 
Evangelist (Dec. 27), and Holy Innocents (Dec. 28), 
in the order with which we are familiar, were already- 
established in the West. And long before the period 
of the Gregorian Kalendar we have evidence that in 
some parts of the East before the close of the fourth 
century a group of festivals commemorating eminent 
saints of the New Testament were celebrated between 
the feast of the Nativity and the first of January. 
Basil the Great died on Jan. 1 a.d. 379 ; and his 
brother Gregory of Nyssa delivered the funeral oration 
at his burial. In this discourse the preacher speaks 
of a group of feasts preceding the first of January, 
namely of St Stephen, St Peter, St James and St John, 
and St Paul. It may with some reason be believed 
that the dates of these festivals had no relation, real 
or fancied, to the days of the deaths of these saints 
of the Church's beginnings. 

As regards St James we know that he was killed at the 
time of the Passover, so that the Hieronymian Martyr- 
ology makes the day in December to be the day of his 
consecration to the episcopate. Liturgists have said it 
was becoming that the King of glory should come into the 
world accompanied by the chiefs of his court. And it is 
not a wholly baseless fancy that already there was a desire 
(of which at a later period we have many illustrations) 
to connect a great festival with one or more other com- 
D. 3 



34 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

memorations associated with it in thought. The memories 
of the age of the martyrs would naturally suggest the name 
of the proto-martyr ; while the relations of the Lord to 
St James, St John, and St Peter, and the eminence of 
St Paul may perhaps sufficiently account for their appear- 
ance here. 

There is little doubt that at the close of the fourth 
century the churches of Asia Minor had festivals of 
St Stephen on Dec. 26, St James and St John on 
Dec. 26, and St Peter and St Paul on Dec. 28 \ And 
in the West our earliest information shows us St 
Stephen on Dec. 26; but there are variations as 
regards the other festivals. The ancient Kalendar 
of Carthage shows us on Dec. 27 'St John the Baptist 
and James the Apostle, whom Herod slew/ and Holy 
Innocents on Dec. 28 2 . 

The earliest Roman service-books show us only 
St John on Dec. 27, and he is St John the Evan- 
gelist 3 . Yet in the so-called Martyrology of St 
Jerome (which, though interpolated, contains many 
ancient features), we find at this day, together 
with ' the Assumption of St John at Ephesus/ ' the 
ordination to the episcopate of James, the Lord's 
brother, who was crowned with martyrdom at the 
paschal time 4 .' The Holy Innocents (Dec. 28) is 

1 Duchesne, Chr. Worship, E. ti\, 266 f., where certain varia- 
tions in the Armenian and Nestorian Kalendars are exhibited. 

2 Possibly ' the Baptist ' is a bungle of the transcriber. 

8 [On these commemorations of St James and St John see 
further C. L. Feltoe in J.Th.JSt. x. 589f. Edd.] 

4 The Hieronymian Martyrology is a mechanical and unin- 
telligent piecing together of Eastern and Western lists, to which 



COMMEMORATIONS OF THE LORD. I 35 

known in the Latin books since the sixth century, 
and may well have been earlier ; but Peter and Paul 
are found together on another day (June 29), the day 
of their martyrdom at Rome, as was generally as- 
sumed. Though we are not able to determine with 
precision on what day the Innocents of Bethlehem 
were commemorated in early times, there can be little 
doubt that there was some commemoration of those 
whom, as St Augustine says, 'the Church has received 
to the honour of the martyrs.' 

There are some reasons for conjecturing that the 
commemoration of the Innocents was at first in 
association with the Epiphany. In the second half 
of the fourth century the poet Prudentius has some 
pretty lines on the Holy Innocents as martyrs in his 
hymn on the Epiphany 1 . And Leo the Great in 
more than one of his sermons on the Epiphany has 
laudatory passages on the martyrdom of the Innocents. 
Yet in estimating the weight that should attach to 
such references it should be remembered that Herod's 
slaughter of the children at Bethlehem is in the 
Gospel narrative so closely connected with the visit 
of the Magi that it would not be unnatural for both 
poet and preacher to touch on that striking story, 
although there were no intentional commemoration 
of the Innocents attached by the Church to that day. 
In the Byzantine Kalendar the Fourteen Thousand 

African additions were made as late as a.d. 600. Its origin has 
been investigated by De Rossi and Duchesne, V. de Buck and 
Achelis: see Wordsworth's Ministry of Grace, p. 66. 
1 Caihemerinon, Hymnus xii. 

3—2 



36 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

Holy Infants are commemorated on Dec. 29. In the 
Armenian Kalendar the Fourteen Thousand Innocent 
Martyrs are commemorated on June 10. It deserves 
notice that in the Mozarabic Kalendars we find 
' St James the Lord's Brother ' at Dec. 28 ; 'St John 
Evangelist ' at Dec. 29 ; and ' St James the Brother 
of John' at Dec. 30. 



CHAPTER IV 

OTHER COMMEMORATIONS OF EVENTS IN 
THE LORD'S LIFE. PENTECOST 

The commemoration of the death and resurrection 
of Jesus Christ was in the nature of things a natural 
and inevitable outcome of the religious beliefs and 
feelings of the infant Church. The fixing of days for 
the commemoration of other events in the life of our 
Lord came with thought and reflection ; they belong 
to the period of constructiveness, and we have no 
evidence to show that their appearance was very early. 
Tertullian is silent about other days than Sunday 
(the Lord's Day), the Pasch (including the Passion 
and the Resurrection), and Pentecost 1 ; and Origen 
particularises the Lord's Day, the Parasceve (perhaps 
in the sense of the weekly Friday ■ station '), the 
Pasch, and Pentecost, as being days specially observed 
by Christians 2 . 

The Circumcision is obviously dependent on 
whatever was regarded as the date of the Nativity, 
and is the result of reflection and ecclesiastical con- 
structiveness. It is eight days after the Nativity 

1 Be Corona, 3. a Contra Celsum, viii. 22. 



38 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

on Jan. 1, with all Christendom, save the Armenians, 
who celebrating the Nativity (together with other 
Epiphanies of the Lord) on Jan. 6, naturally observe 
Jan. 13 as the day of the Circumcision. The day is 
not noted in the Bucherian Kalendar, nor in the 
Carthaginian. Baillet 1 comes to the conclusion that 
it appears first as appointed for general observance 
as a festival, about the middle of the seventh century, 
and in Spain, where servile work was forbidden on 
this day. But it would appear from the Canons of 
the Fourth Council of Toledo that the day was then 
observed with penitential features (canon 11). From 
the Sermons of Augustine we learn that in his time 
Jan. 1 was observed by Christians as a solemn fast, in 
protest against the licentious revelry and excesses of 
the pagans at this time of the year 2 . And as late as the 
Second Council of Tours (a.d. 567) it is enjoined that, 
while all other days between the Nativity and the 
Epiphany are to be treated (in regard to use of food) 
as festivals, an exception is to be made for the space 
of three days at the beginning of January, for which 
time the fathers had appointed litanies to be made 
'ad calcandam Gentilium consuetudinem.' But it 
should be remarked that the canon (17) dealing with 
the subject has special reference to fasts to be ob- 
served by monks. It is therefore not impossible that 
the fast had by this time ceased to be observed by 
the general body of the faithful, but, in a spirit of 
conservatism, was regarded as proper to be maintained 

1 Les Vies des Saints (Paris, 1739), n. 4. 

2 Serm. 197, 198. 



COMMEMORATIONS OF THE LORD. II 39 

in the monasteries. The canon is interesting for 
another reason ; it affords perhaps the earliest example 
of the use of the term ' Circumcision ' as applied to 
this day, which appears in the Gelasian and Gregorian 
Sacramentaries simply as Octavo, Domini, i.e. the 
octave of the Nativity. In the Gelasian Sacramentary 
there is no emphasis in the service on the Circum- 
cision, while the prayer called Ad populum distinctly 
points to a prohibition against partaking of the 
convivium diabolicum of the pagans. And a mass 
immediately following that for the Octave, entitled 
Ad prohibendum ab idolis, points in the same direction. 
The Gregorian Sacramentary shows no reference to 
the Circumcision in the prayers of the mass 1 . 

Even in the early part of the seventh century 
Isidore of Seville condemns the indecent gaieties in- 
dulged in on this day, and recalls the ancient injunction 
that the day should be observed as a fast 2 . The 
fourth Council of Toledo (canon 11) represents as 
the practice of Spain and Gaul the omission of the 
singing of Alleluia on the Kalends of January, propter 
error em gentilium. 

In the later Western service-books the thought 
of the Circumcision is given greater prominence, and 
intermingles with the thoughts suggested by the 
Octave. The feast of the Circumcision appears in 
the Greek Church in the eighth century 3 . 

1 This is so as regards the text printed by Muratori; but in 
Menard's text there is a benediction that in its language is not 
unlike the collect in the Book of Common Prayer. 

2 Be Eccl. Off. i. 40, 41. 

3 In Dom Cabrol's Les Origines Uturgiques (Appendice c.) will 



40 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

Commemoration of Passion -tide ; Holy 
Week (the 'Great Week/ as it is styled in the East). 
The commemoration of the death of the Saviour is 
the primitive and essential element : other days 
were given places as the result of reflection, and of 
the desire to reproduce liturgically in a mimetic 
way the events of the Lord's history during the last 
paschal week. We possess the early testimony of 
Tertullian for the dies Pasckae, for so he names the 
day. He tells us that it was a public and general 
fast, and that the kiss of peace was omitted from the 
services of the Church 1 . But for Palm Sunday, 
Coena Domini, and the Great Sabbath we have no 
evidence till much later. It is from Palestine that 
we get the earliest notice of the rites of Palm 
Sunday. In her account of the ceremonies at Jerusa- 
lem ' Silvia' describes the procession of palm-bearers 
on the Sunday of the Great Week. The feast of 
Palms is also mentioned in the life of Euthymius, 
abbot in Palestine, who died at a very advanced age 
in a.d. 473. But in the West the carrying of palms 
does not appear earlier than the ninth century. The 
commemoration (Natalis Calicis) of the institution 
of the Eucharist on the night before the Lord suffered 
probably had its rise about the same time as Palm 
Sunday ; and a certain mimetic character was given 
to the rites of the Thursday by delaying the celebra- 
tion of the Liturgy till the evening. This was further 

be found an interesting collection of liturgical passages illustrating 
the Church's protest against idolatry on the Kalends of January. 
1 De Orat. 18. 



COMMEMORATIONS OF THE LORD. II 41 

enhanced in the Church of Carthage (a.d. 397), which 
in view of the original institution of the Eucharist 
having been after supper, made an express synodical 
declaration that the rule of fasting communion was 
binding 'excepto uno die anniversario, quo coena 
domini celebraturV And St Augustine expressly 
affirms that the practice of the Church did not 
condemn communion after the evening meal on the 
Thursday in Holy Week 2 . The name Dies Mandati 
(which has probably given us our Maundy Thursday) 
is not very ancient. In mediaeval times the par- 
ticular mandate of the Lord was taken to be the 
feet- washing, before or during which were sung the 
words 'Mandatum novum do vobis 3 .' 

At Rome, as late as the time of St Leo, in regard 
to the days specially observed in Holy Week, the 
only distinction from ordinary weeks seems to have 
been the commemoration of the institution of the 
Eucharist on Thursday. The adoration of the Cross 

1 Concil. Carthag. in. c. 29. 

2 Ep. liv. 7, ad Januarium. The well-known passage in Socrates 
{H.E. v. 22) seems to indicate that he believed that, excluding 
Alexandria, the Egyptians and the inhabitants of the Thebais 
ordinarily partook of the mysteries in the evening after a full 
meal. 

3 Spelman (Glossarium Archaeologicum, s.v.) derives our Maundy 
from maund, ' a basket,' because gifts for the poor were carried in 
baskets ; and this derivation has attained some popularity. But 
there is little to support it. In Germany from the later mediaeval 
period Der griine Donnerstag (Green Thursday) has been the 
popular name of the day. No entirely satisfactory explanation of 
the term has been offered. There is no question that in several 
German churches green vestments were worn by the priest and his 
ministers at the Mass of Maundy Thursday. 



42 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

on Good Friday (which we find at Jerusalem in the 
days of * Silvia ') and the mass of the pre-sanctified 
were later additions, and are regarded by Duchesne as 
having been introduced into the West in the seventh 
or eighth century 1 . The observances of the Saturday 
were those of the vigil of Easter. 

The Ascension: in the Greek Kalendar, and 
frequently in Greek writers, with a different con- 
notation, 'the Taking up,' 'Assumption' (ai/aA^is) 2 , 
was celebrated forty days after Easter, as the actual 
Ascension took place forty days after the Resurrection ; 
it is obviously a festival of the constructive period. 
There is no mention of it in the earliest Christian 
writings ; but, without here going into details of 
evidence, it may be stated that the festival was 
observed, possibly early in, and certainly before, the 
close of the fourth century. It is noticed by ' Silvia ' 
(though the name Ascensa is not given to it) as a 
day on which at Bethlehem, where the vigil was kept, 
the bishop of Jerusalem and the presbyters preached, 
but it does not appear that the Eucharist was cele- 
brated. There was a procession back to Jerusalem 
in the evening. Augustine classes the day with 
the Passion, the Resurrection, and the advent of the 
Holy Spirit (Pentecost), as observed ' anniversaria 
solemnitate 3 .' In the Sacramentary of Leo many 
masses in Ascensa (= Ascensione) Domini are to be 
found. Both in the East and in some parts of the 

1 Ohr. Worship, E. tr., p. 248. See also Cabrol, Les Origines 
liturgiqueSy pp. 173 f. 

2 See Luke ix. 51. 3 Epist . liv. 1, ad Januarium. 



COMMEMORATIONS OF THE LORD. II 43 

West it was customary to celebrate the festival out- 
side the cities, — a practice suggested doubtless by 
Luke xxiv. 50. 

It may be remarked that many old English 
writers, both before and after the Reformation, use 
the term 'Holy Thursday' for this day. 

The Transfiguration (Aug. 6 in the Byzan- 
tine 1 , Ethiopic, and later mediaeval and modern 
Roman Kalendars : on the 7th Sunday after Pentecost 
in the Armenian) is of late appearance. If a certain 
canon (or prose hymn) on the Transfiguration at- 
tributed to John of Damascus be really his, it would 
point to the probable observance of the day in the 
eighth century in the East. In the West the festival 
appears much later ; but the evidence indicates its 
having had a partial and local observance long before 
it was enjoined by Pope Calixtus III for the Church 
generally in a.d. 1457. This Pope appointed an 
office for the day, which was afterwards somewhat 
altered by Pius V. The action of Calixtus was 
prompted by thankfulness for a victory over the 
Turks at Belgrade. Among the Greeks the Trans- 
figuration is a day of great solemnity. It is preceded 
by a 'proheortia' and affects the following eight days. 
The Armenians observe a preparatory fast for a week 2 . 

Pentecost. This word as commonly employed 
by early Christian writers signifies the whole period 

1 *H dyia MeTa/iOjo^wtrts. 

2 In 1892 the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States 
of America introduced into its Prayer Book the Transfiguration 
(Aug. 6) as a red-letter day with proper Lessons, Collect, Epistle, 
and Gospel. 



44 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

of fifty days after the Resurrection. It is thus that 
the term is used by Tertullian in a passage (de 
Idolat. 14) where he compares the number of festival 
days among the pagans with the number of Christian 
festivals. The same is probably true where he speaks 
of Pentecost as 'ordinandis lavacris latissimum 
spatium' (de Baptismo 19). During that period 
fasting, and kneeling at prayer, at least in the public 
assemblies, were forbidden: and Alleluia, which had 
been silent, was resumed. It seems, however, that 
once at least Tertullian had in view, in the use of the 
word, the day on which the period closed 1 . Origen 
in a similar way uses the word for the whole period, 
but also seems to distinguish between the general 
and more restricted signification of the word 2 . Earlier 
than either of these is the testimony of Irenaeus (if 
we may accept it as his) cited, as from his lost book 
On the Pascha, by Pseudo- Justin (Quaest et Bespons. 
ad Orthodoxos, 115), where Irenaeus speaks of not 
kneeling in Pentecost, as that time is of equal dignity 
with the Lord's day, 'Pentecost' being here used 
evidently for a season. On the other hand, the 
compiler, whoever he was, of the Quaestiones, in 
which Irenaeus is quoted, in the same place speaks of 
not kneeling 'from the Pascha to Pentecost/ using 
the latter term in its restricted sense. In the newly- 
recovered Testament of the Lord 3 Pentecost is used 
for the fifty days between Easter and our Whit- 

1 De Corona, 3. 2 c. Celsum, vin. 22. 

3 On the date of this Church Order, see Maclean, Ancient 
Church Orders, p. 163 f. 



COMMEMORATIONS OF THE LORD. II 45 

Sunday (i. 28, 42; ii. 12). An interesting survival 
of the old signification of Pentecost is still to be found 
in the Greek service-books, where the term Meso- 
pentecoste is used for special festal observances mid- 
way between Easter and Whitsunday, commencing on 
the Wednesday following the third Sunday after 
Easter, and lasting for a week. 

In the forty-third canon of the Council of Elvira 
(a.d. 305) we have a clear example of the use of the 
word Pentecost for the fiftieth day. And after that 
date the word is widely used in that sense : while 
the festival itself assumes gradually more and more 
dignity and importance. l Silvia ' describes the elabo- 
rate ceremonial observed on this day at Jerusalem 
towards the close of the fourth century. 

There are considerable difficulties attendant on 
an attempt to assign a precise date to the addition of 
an octave to this festival ; and the festal character of 
the octave week was affected by the ember days 
occurring in that week. In the Gelasian Sacramentary, 
as it has come down to us, we have the 'propers' 
for a mass on the Sunday of the octave of Pentecost. 
The mass may be described as a mass of the Holy 
Spirit, praying for protection for the Church from 
the allurements of the vain and deceitful philosophy 
of the world ; true knowledge of the nature of God 
was given by the bestowal of the Holy Spirit, the 
Spirit of wisdom, and knowledge, and understanding, 
and counsel. The benedictions, which immediately 
follow, on those who return to the Catholic unity from 
the Arian and other heresies, suggest that it was in 



46 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

this way that the octave of Pentecost came at a later 
date to be made a festival in honour of the mystery 
of the blessed Trinity 1 . The public reception to the 
Catholic unity of Arian and other heretics would 
gradually cease to be a feature of the season : but the 
liturgical colouring of the service would remain, and 
would have to be accounted for. As a matter of fact, 
however, the establishment of a festival of the Trinity 
with a special office and mass was of late date. It 
makes its appearance in the Low Countries in the 
tenth century, and made its way but slowly, and 
with varying success. Pope Alexander II, who died 
in a.d. 1073, when consulted on the subject, wrote 
that according to the Roman rite there was no day 
set apart to commemorate the Trinity any more than 
the Unity of the Divine Being, and that every day of 
the year was truly consecrated to the honour of the 
Trinity in Unity. It was not till the fourteenth 
century, under the pontificate of John XXII, that the 
Roman Church received the feast of the Trinity and 
attached it to the first Sunday after Pentecost 2 . 

In England, according to Gervase of Canterbury, 
Archbishop Thomas Becket instituted the principal 
feast of the Trinity on the octave of Pentecost 3 . 

i See Wilson's edit. 129—131. 

2 For details the student may consult Baillet, torn. ix. ii. 152 — 
158. 

3 Twysden's Decern. Scriptores, col. 1383. 



CHAPTER V 

FESTIVALS OF ST MARY THE VIKGIN 

I. Western Kalendars. 

The history of the origin of some of the following 
festivals is obscure ; and it is impossible to be precise 
as to the dates of their first appearance. We speak 
with some reservation of the Festival of Feb. 2, 
known first in the West, as well as in the East, by 
the name Hypapante {i.e. 'the Meeting' of Simeon 
with the Lord and His Mother), and afterwards as 
the Purification of the Virgin. It seems at first in 
the West to have been a festival of our Lord rather 
than of the Virgin. In the propria for ' Yppapanti ' 
(sic) in the Gregorian Sacramentary the allusion to 
St Mary is of the slightest. Hence at the time when 
it first appeared in the West it may be reckoned as 
having no special reference to St Mary. The Church 
of Rome does not appear (according to Duchesne) to 
have observed any festival of the Virgin before the 
seventh century, when it adopted the four following 
festivals from the Church of Byzantium. 

1. The Purification (or, in early times. 
Hypapante). Its date (Feb. 2) is determined by 



48 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

counting forty days from Christmas (Luke ii. 22: 
compare Levit. xii. 2, 4). 

A feast of much dignity and importance {cum 
summa laetitia, ac si per Pascha) commemorating 
the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple is noticed 
as celebrated (towards the close of the fourth century) 
at Jerusalem at the time of the pilgrimage of * Silvia/ 
It was observed on Feb. 14 (the 40th day after the 
Epiphany, reckoned as the day of the Lord's Nativity) : 
but 'Silvia' does not appear to have regarded it as in 
any sense having special reference to St Mary. The 
words of the pilgrim simply record the incident in 
the Temple ; and it looks as if the feast were only 
commemorative of a remarkable event in the history 
of the Lord. 

It may be pointed out that the Feast of the 
Presentation of the Lord in the Temple is still 
observed by the Armenians on Feb. 14, as they still 
celebrate the Nativity on Jan. 6. 

The origin of the consecrating of candles and 
carrying them in procession which has given us the 
low Latin names candelaria and candelcisa, the 
French chandeleur, the Italian candelora, the German 
Lichtmesse, and our English name Candlemas, and 
which from early times formed a striking feature in the 
ritual of the Feast, has been conjecturally connected 
by some with a symbolical setting forth of the words 
of Simeon (Luke ii. 32); and by others with the 
ceremonial of the heathen Lupercalia. But the 
matter is still involved in doubt. 

In the East the establishment of the festival 



FESTIVALS OF THE VIRGIN MARY 49 

throughout the Empire is generally assigned to 
Justinian in the year 542. The appearance of 
Hypapante in the so-called Gregorian Sacramentary 
is, it need scarcely be said, no proof that the festival 
was observed in the time of Gregory the Great. 

The word ' Hypapante ' lingered long in the West. 
We find it as the only name of the festival in 
the Martyrology of Bede ; and one hundred and fifty 
years later the day is marked in Usuard as simply 
€ Hypapante Domini.' 

2. The Annunciation (March 25) like ' Hy- 
papante ' was probably originally a feast of our Lord, 
as marking the time of the Incarnation. Inferentially 
it may be considered as well established both in the 
East and West considerably before the close of the 
seventh century. Duchesne considers that we have 
very clear testimony to this feast before the Council 
in Trullo (a.d. 692), where it was spoken of as already 
established. Perhaps earlier, or, at latest, almost 
contemporary, in the West is the testimony of what 
is known as the tenth Council of Toledo (?a.d. 694) 1 
where the complaint is made that in various parts of 
Spain the festival of St Mary was observed on various 
days, and it is further added that as the festival 
cannot be fitly celebrated either in Lent, or when 
overshadowed by the Paschal festival, the Council 
ordains that for the future the day should be xv Kal. 
Jan. (Dec. 18) and the Nativity of the Lord on 
viii Kal. Jan. (Dec. 25). It is plain that something 

1 The date of this Council is sometimes placed as early as 
a.d. 656. 



50 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

of the nature of an octave was to follow the festival 
of Dec. 18 ; and there is added in a somewhat apolo- 
getic tone, - nam quid festum matris nisi incarnatio 
verbi V (canon 1). The Trullan Council took a different 
course. While continuing to prohibit all other 
festivals during Lent, it sanctioned the celebration of 
this. In the Milanese rite the feast was celebrated 
on the fourth Sunday in Advent. In the Mozarabic 
Missal we find in the Kalendar the Annunciation of 
St Mary marked both on March 25 and Dec. 18; the 
latter being distinguished as the ' Annunciation of 
the 0/ referring to the great Antiphons sung at that 
season. 

The older titles of the festival were the ' An- 
nunciation of the Lord,' 'the Annunciation of the 
Angel to the Blessed Virgin Mary/ or 'the Conception 
of Christ/ 

The rules in the Roman rite for transferring the 
Annunciation to another day under certain circum- 
stances will be found in technical works of the 
commentators. 

3. The Nativity of the Virgin (Sept. 8). 
This also is found in the West towards the close of 
the seventh century. Durandus, who is often more 
fanciful than wise, had in this case perhaps some 
historical foundation for his assertion that the festival 
was founded by Pope Sergius I in a.d. 695. The 
story of Joachim and Anna, the parents of St Mary, 
is found in certain apocryphal Gospels which cir- 
culated among the Gnostics 1 . 

1 [See esp. the Protevangelium Jacobi. Edd.] 



FESTIVALS OF THE VIRGIN MARY 51 

4. The Sleep, or (later) Assumption, of 
the Virgin (Aug. 15) appears in the West about 
the same time as the Annunciation and the Nativity 
of the Virgin. All three were unknown to Gregory 
the Great. It originated in the East, and was there 
known as the Sleep and (afterwards) the Translation. 
According to the historian, Nicephorus Callistus, the 
festival was founded by the Emperor Maurice (a.d. 
582 — 602). It is beyond our province here to deal 
with the legend of St Mary's body as well as soul 
being taken up to heaven. The festival made its 
way slowly in Gaul, but was eventually adopted by 
Charlemagne. As late as the twelfth century it was 
not universally observed in the East. 

The advance in the titles of the festival from 
deposition pausatio, dormitio to transitus and assumptio 
is not without significance. In Bede the name is 
Dormitio. 

It will be observed that all these four festivals 
came to Rome from Byzantium. In the later mediaeval 
period they were of universal obligation in the West 1 . 

For notices of the observance of the death of St 
Mary on Jan. 18, see Baillet, op. cit. y vi. 11. 

5. The Presentation of St Mary (prae- 
sentatioy illatio, oblatio) in the Temple at Jerusalem. 
In the modern Roman Kalendar at Nov. 21, it is a 
1 greater double.' It does not appear in the Kalendar 
of the Sarum Breviary or Missal ; but the Sarum 

In the printed Sarum books the Assumption was a * principal 
double ' ; the Purification and Nativity ' greater doubles ' ; and the 
Annunciation a 'lesser double.' 

4—2 



52 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

Enchiridion (1530) gives Nov. 21, and the Office is 
printed in the Breviary. There were many exceptions 
to this feast being observed 1 . The festival is based 
on a legend 2 that at an early age Mary was dedi- 
cated to the service of God in the Temple, and that 
there she grew up, and served under the priests and 
Levites. The first appearance of the festival is at 
Constantinople; and there is evidence for it there in 
a.d. 1150. It passed to the West towards the close 
of the fourteenth century 3 . And with more certainty 
than is usually possible in such enquiries we can 
trace its introduction to the impression made by the 
accounts, brought back from Cyprus, by Philip de 
Mazi&res, of the solemnities of the feast in the East. 
Pius V (a.d. 1566—1572) withdrew it from the 
Roman Kalendar; but it was restored by Sixtus V 
(a.d. 1585—1590). 

6. The Conception of St Mary (Dec. 8). 
Since Dec. 8, 1854, when Pius IX (in the Apostolic 
Letters Ineffabilis Deus) decreed the doctrine of 
the Immaculate Conception to be a necessary article 
of the Faith, the epithet Immaculate has been pre- 
fixed to the original title in the service-books of the 
Roman Communion. In the Greek Church the day 
observed is Dec. 9, and the title is the Conception of 
St Anna, grandmother of God, the Easterns connecting 
the word ' conception' with the person who conceived, 

1 For these, and varieties as to the day of observance, see 
Grotefend, Zeitrechnung des deutsch. Mittelalters u. der Neuzeit. 

2 [See the Protevangelium (cc. 7, 8). Edd.] 

3 [See however Gasquet and Bishop, Bosworih Psalter, pp. 49 f . 
Edd.] 



FESTIVALS OF THE VIRGIN MARY 53 

while the Latins connected it with the person who 
was conceived. The festival was commanded to be 
observed throughout the Empire of the East by the 
Emperor Manuel Comnenus in the middle of the 
twelfth century. 

The evidence seems to point to the fact that, like 
several other festivals of the Virgin, this originated 
in the East. In the Greek Horologion we find it 
related that, according to the ancient tradition of the 
Church, Anna was barren and well stricken in years, 
and also that her spouse Joachim was an aged man. 
In sorrow for their childlessness they prayed to the 
Lord, who hearing their prayers intimated to them 
by an angel that they would have a child, and in 
accordance with the promise Anna conceived 1 . It 
appears that the festival had no dogmatic significance ; 
and it had its parallel in the historical festival, still 
observed in the Greek Church on Sept. 23, of the 
Conception of St John the Baptist, a festival which 
also had a place in the old Latin Martyrologies. 

In the West the local observance of the day is 
associated commonly with the name of St Anselm, 
archbishop of Canterbury, who, in one form of the 
story, on a voyage from England to Normandy 
during a storm vowed to establish the festival. But 
the day is marked in some English Kalendars just 
before the Norman Conquest, though at first it had 
a very limited acceptance 2 . It is plain that at an 

1 [This legend also appears in the Protevangelium (cc. 1 — 5). 
Edd.] 

2 [Gasquet and Bishop, Bosworth Psalter, pp. 43 ff. Edd.] 



54 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

early date there were some who connected the festi- 
val with the belief that St Mary differed from other 
mortals in being without original sin. For when the 
Chapter of the Cathedral of Lyons were about to 
institute the festival in that church, St Bernard of 
Clair vaux wrote (a.d. 1140) expostulating with them 
partly on the ground that though St Mary was, as 
he believed, sanctified in the womb, yet her con- 
ception was not holy. He added that this was a 
novel festival, 'quam ritus Ecclesiae nescit, non 
probat ratio, non commendat antiqua traditio'; and 
declares that it was the outcome of the simplicity 
of a few unlearned persons, the daughter of incon- 
siderateness (levitatis), and the sister of superstition 
(Epist. 174). 

John Beleth, Dean of the Faculty of Theology at 
Paris, towards the close of the twelfth century argued 
much in the same way as St Bernard. And in the 
following century, and towards its close, such a leading 
authority as Durandus, bishop of Mende, in his 
Rationale says that there were some who would 
celebrate this festival, but that he could not approve 
of it, because St Mary was conceived in original sin, 
though she was sanctified in the womb. 

As regards the Church of Rome (properly so 
called), Innocent III in the beginning of the thirteenth 
century declares in one of his sermons (Serin, ii de 
Joan. Bapt.) that no other conception than that of 
the Lord Jesus was celebrated in the Church. Never- 
theless the celebration of the day spread both in 
France, and, more particularly, in England. The 



FESTIVALS OF THE VIRGIN MARY 55 

Council of Oxford (a.d. 1222) approved of the feast, 
but distinguished it from the other feasts of the 
Virgin by leaving it to be observed or not at discretion. 
In the province of Canterbury the day was made 
of obligation by Archbishop Simon Mepeham (a.d. 
1328—33). 

In 1263 the Franciscans resolved to celebrate the 
festival publicly in their churches. But even the 
Franciscans were not agreed among themselves as to 
the doctrine of the Immaculate Conception. Alvarus 
Pelagius, the Spanish Theologian, Great Penitentiary 
of Pope John XXII, in his de Planctu Ecclesiae 
(1332) declares that /the new and fantastic opinion 
should be cancelled by the faithful.' 

As is well known/the Dominicans took a strong and 
even violent part against the doctrine. The greatest 
doctor of the thirteenth century, Thomas Aquinas, 
had clearly pronounced that St Mary was not sancti- 
fied till the infusion of her anima rationalis. But 
with regard to the feast of the Conception he states 
that inasmuch as the Roman Church, though not 
celebrating the Conception of the Blessed Virgin, 
tolerates the practice of certain Churches which do 
celebrate it, the celebration of the feast is not to be 
wholly reprobated; and he adds that we must not 
infer from the observance of the day that St Mary 
was holy in her conception, but because we are 
ignorant as to the time when she was sanctified, the 
feast of her sanctification rather than of her con- 
ception is celebrated on the day of her conception 1 . 

1 gumma, P. in. qu. 27, art. 2. 



56 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

Accordingly in Dominican Kalendars we find the day 
marked as Sanctificatio Marias. 

The Council of B&le (1439) adopted a constitution 
applicable to the whole Church that the feast should 
be observed according to the ancient and laudable 
custom on Dec. 8, and that it should be known under 
the title of the Conception of the Blessed Virgin 
Mary, forbidding the use of the name Sanctijication, 
as having a less extended use. The Roman See, not 
recognising this Council, did not take action till 
a.d. 1477, when Sixtus IV, who had been a Fran- 
ciscan, published an ordinance (and it is the very first 
decree of any Pope on the subject) granting large 
indulgences to all the faithful who celebrated, or 
assisted at, the Mass and Office of the Conception on 
the festival or throughout its octave. In 1483 the 
same Pope pronounced excommunication on any 
preachers who asserted that St Mary was conceived 
in original sin or that those who observed the festival 
sinned 1 . Clement VIII (1592—1605) raised the 
festival to the rank of a greater double. The later 
history of the festival can be pursued in Baillet, and 
in recent writers dealing with Pius IX. 

For minor festivals of the Virgin, such as l St 
Mary at Snows/ the Visitation of St Mary, the 
Espousals (Desponsatio), the Most Holy Name of 
Mary, the Seven Sorrows, the Rosary of St Mary, 
Blessed Mary of Mount Carmel, the Expectation of 
the Delivery (partus), and others, the reader may 
consult Baillet, the Catholic Dictionary, etc. 

1 Both these constitutions will be found in the Common 
ExtravagantSy lib. hi. tit. 12. 



FESTIVALS OF THE VIRGIN MARY 57 

II. The Orthodox Church of the East. 

A reference to the classification of Feasts in the 
Eastern Church 1 will show that among the twelve 
principal Feasts are found (1) The Evangelismos 
of the Theotokos, March 25, corresponding to the 
Western feast of the Annunciation ; (2) the Repose 
of the Theotokos, Aug. 15 ; (3) the Nativity of the 
Theotokos, Sept. 8; and (4) the Entrance of the 
Theotokos into the Temple, Nov. 21, corresponding 
to the Presentation of the Virgin in the West. 

To these have to be added the following feasts of 
lesser dignity: (5) Hypapante (the Meeting of St 
Mary with Simeon and Anna in the Temple), Feb. 2, 
corresponding to the Western Purification. This is 
a day of obligation: but (as has been already re- 
marked) it is perhaps to be regarded rather as a 
festival of the Lord than of St Mary. (6) The 
Deposition of the precious Vestment of the Theotokos 
in the Church of Blachernae at Constantinople, 
July 2 : (7) the Deposition of the precious Zone of 
the Theotokos at Constantinople, Aug. 31: (8) the 
Conception of St Anna (i.e. her conception of St 
Mary), Dec. 9, a day of obligation : (9) the Synaxis 
of the Theotokos and Joseph, her spouse, Dec. 26, 
a day of obligation. This day is also called the 
Synaxis of the Theotokos fleeing into Egypt. The 
Greeks consider that the visit of the Magi was exactly 
one year after the birth of Christ, and that the flight 
into Egypt was on the day following that visit. 

i See p. 135. 



CHAPTER VI 

FESTIVALS OF THE APOSTLES, THE EVANGE- 
LISTS, AND OF OTHER PERSONS NAMED 
IN THE NEW TESTAMENT. OCTAVES AND 
VIGILS 

In the Greek Church there has continued to the 
present day a Synaxis of the Twelve Apostles on 
the day following St Peter and St Paul (June 29) ; 
and in the West we find a commemoration of all the 
Apostles, connected with the festival of St Peter and 
St Paul, in the Leonine Sacramentary 1 . There is a 
Natale Omnium Apostolorum with a vigil in the 
Gelasian Sacramentary. This festival may have pre- 
ceded all separate commemorations. It would seem 
to have been observed close to the date of St Peter 
and St Paul. 

With certain notable exceptions, feasts of the 
New Testament Saints came but slowly into the 
cycle of Christian solemnities. With some exceptions, 
more or less doubtful, there is no reason to think 
that the days of the deaths of the Apostles were 

1 [See the prayer in Feltoe's edition, p. 46 ; 'omnipotens sempi- 
terne deus qui nos omnium apostolorum merita sub una tribuisti 
celebritate venerari.' Edd.] 



FESTIVALS OF APOSTLES AND OTHERS 59 

known to those who gave them places in the Kalen- 
dars. It is highly probable in some cases, and not 
improbable in others, that the dates assigned for the 
festivals really mark some deposition or translation 
of the supposed relics of those commemorated, or 
the dedication of some church named in their honour. 
Considerations of the space at our disposal demand 
that the subject should be only lightly touched; 
but references are given to easily accessible works. 
And we deal only with the more notable festivals, 
or festivals of early appearance. 

St Peter and St Paul (June 29). There is 
no question that at an early date this festival was 
celebrated at Rome. The belief was entertained by 
several ancient writers that these two Saints suffered 
death upon the same day of the month, but in 
different years. 

We have seen already (p. 33 f.) that in the East 
at an early date there was a commemoration of St 
Peter in close connexion with the commemoration of 
the Lord's Nativity. But at Rome in the earliest 
Western Kalendar (the Bucherian) we find two fes- 
tivals that deserve consideration : (1) Natale Petri 
de Cathedra at Feb. 22 ; and (2) Petri in Catacumbas 
et Pauli Os\t\iense, at June 29, to which are added 
the words, Tusco et Basso Coss. To deal first with 
the latter entry : as the consulate of Tuscus and 
Bassus marks a.d. 258, it has been not unnaturally 
conjectured that the record marks the date of some 
translation of the Apostles' relics. But that con- 
jecture does not absolutely exclude the supposition 



60 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

that the day chosen for the translation was the day 
which was believed to have been the day of their 
martyrdom. The translation, as Bishop Pearson 1 
long ago supposed, was the removal, perhaps with 
a view to safety, of the remains to a place at the 
third milestone on the Appian Way, called 'Ad 
Cataeumbas/ during the heat of the persecution 
under Valerian. 

The observance of a commemoration of St Paul 
on June 30 (still so marked in the Roman Kalendar), 
has been accounted for by the fact that the bishop of 
Rome celebrating mass first at the tomb of St Peter, 
and afterwards on the same day having to go a long 
distance to the tomb of St Paul, there to celebrate 
again, it was arranged to observe the festival of 
St Paul on the day after June 29, with a view to 
avoiding the fatigue and inconvenience of the two 
functions on the one day. 

Cathedra Petri. The entry cited above from 
the Bucherian Kalendar, Natale Petri de cathe- 
dra, 'the Festival of Peter of the Chair/ looks 
very like the record of the dedication of a church, 
where perhaps a seated statue of the Apostle was 
placed 2 . We are at once reminded of the large 
seated figure of Hippolytus discovered in 1551 on 
the Via Tiburtina. Or, as De Rossi supposes, the 
festival may have had to do with the actual wooden 



1 Annates Cyprianici, sub anno 258. 

2 In the (so-called) Hieronymian Martyrology the entry at 
Jan. 18 runs 'Dedicatio Cathedrae S. Petri Apostoli, qua primo 
Komae sedit.' 



FESTIVALS OF APOSTLES AND OTHERS 61 

chair (as was supposed) which St Peter had used, and 
of which we hear in the time of Gregory the Great 
But, whatever may have been the origin of the 
festival, it came at a later time to be regarded as 
marking the date of the beginning of St Peter's 
episcopate ; and there is some evidence that the 
festival was made much of as a Christian set off 
against the popular pagan solemnity of Cava cognatio 
on Feb. 22, when the dead members of each family 
were commemorated. 

Duchesne asserts, with something of undue con- 
fidence, that this was without doubt the ground for 
the selection of the date Feb. 22 for the Christian 
festival; but without committing ourselves to the 
acceptance of Duchesne's view, we may say that it 
may well have been a reason why efforts were made 
to draw off the faithful, by means of the Christian 
solemnity, from the temptation to join in rites in- 
compatible with their profession. The festival was 
unknown in the East, and, what is more remarkable, 
equally unknown in the Church of North Africa ; 
but it appeared early in Gaul, and, as has been con- 
jectured, with a view to prevent the festival falling, 
as would occasionally happen, in Lent, the date was 
pushed back to Jan. 18. At Rome it continued to 
be observed on Feb. 22. 

It would seem to have been due to the anxiety 
of the early mediaeval Kalendar-makers and Martyr- 
ologists to comprehend in their lists everything in 
the way of church solemnities recorded in any 
Kalendar that we have the invention of St Peter's 



62 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

Chair at Antioch. They found some Kalendars 
marking Cathedra Petri at Jan. 18, and others at 
Feb. 22. Might not, they would argue, these double 
dates be accounted for by the old accounts that 
St Peter had exercised an episcopate at Antioch 
before he came to Rome ? 

Venerable Bede does not mark any Festival of 
St Peter's Chair at Jan. 18, but at Feb. 22 writes 
'Apud Antiochiam Cathedra S. Petri/ But in the 
Martyrology, known as Gellonense (circ. 800), and in 
Usuard's Martyrology we find at Jan. 18, 'Cathedrae 
S. Petri Apostoli qu& Romae primo sedit,' and at 
Feb. 22 ' Cathedrae S. Petri Apostoli qua sedit apud 
Antiochiam ? (Gellonense), ' Apud Antiochiam Cathe- 
drae S. Petri' (Usuard). There continued to be 
a variety of use in different dioceses as to the day 
on which ' St Peter's Chair ' was celebrated ; and it 
was not till as late as 1558 that Pope Paul IV settled 
the question by ordering that the feast of the Roman 
Chair should be observed on Jan. 18, while Gregory 
XIII restored Feb. 22 as the feast of the Chair at 
Antioch. This is not the place to discuss whether 
there was, properly speaking, any episcopate of 
St Peter at Antioch. It is significant that the 
churches of Greece and the East knew nothing of 
the feast of St Peter's Chair at Antioch 1 . 

1 The student may consult the scholarly article of Dr Sinker 
on 'Peter S., Festivals of in B.C. A., together with Duchesne's 
Christian Worship, E. tr. (pp. 277 — 281), Wordsworth's Ministry of 
Grace, and Kellner's Heortology, pp. 301 — 308. It should be added 
however with regard to Kellner that the notion that the feast is 
connected with the Primacy, as distinguished from the Episcopacy 
of St Peter, seems to be devoid of evidence. 



FESTIVALS OF APOSTLES AND OTHERS 63 

St Peter <ad vincula/ 'St Peter's Chains.' 
The Eastern Church celebrates the festival of 
St Peters Chain on Jan. 16; the Latin Church 
celebrates the corresponding festival on Aug. 1. 
Both festivals not improbably had their origins in 
the dedication of churches, where what were supposed 
to be a chain or chains which had bound Peter were 
preserved. The plural, ' chains/ in the Roman name 
is significant, and will be understood by reference 
to the 4th and 5th Lections for the feast in the 
Roman Breviary. The feast does not appear in 
Western Kalendars till the eighth century. 

The seventeenth century building, S. Pietro in 
Vincoli, on the Esquiline, occupies the site of the 
church of the Apostles, reconstructed at the expense 
of the imperial family between a.d. 432 and a.d. 440, 
where the precious relics were deposited. 

In connexion with this feast attention should be 
called to the fact that in the so-called Hieronymian 
Martyrology at Aug. 1, we find no reference to the 
chains, but there is the particularly interesting entry : 
' At Rome, dedication of the first church both con- 
structed and consecrated by blessed Peter the 
Apostle 1 / 

St Andrew (Nov. 30). The Martyrologies agree 
in giving Nov. 30 as the day of the martyrdom. The 
festival appeared early at Rome, and was given a 
place of high dignity 2 . In fact there is authority for 

1 D'Achery's Spicilegium, torn. ii. 15. 

2 [It is found in the Carthaginian Kalendar, but not in the 
Bucherian, nor in that of Polemius Silvius. Edd.] 



64 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

the feast being kept at Rome in early times with no 
less solemnity than St Peter's Day. It will be re- 
membered that in the prayer Libera nos in the 
Canon of the Mass Andrew is named together with 
Peter and Paul. The Sacramentary of St Leo has 
four sets of ' propers ' for masses on this festival. It 
is a day of much importance in the Greek Church, 
as St Andrew, the Protoclete, is reckoned the apostle 
of Greece. St Andrew is the patron of the Russian 
Church 1 . Relics of St Andrew, said to have been 
brought by a monk named Regulus from Patras to 
Scotland, gave the name of St Andrew to the place in 
Fife previously known as Kilrymont ; and St Andrew 
became the patron saint of Scotland. In the 
Aberdeen Breviary his day is a 'greater double/ 

Bishop Wordsworth remarks that St Andrew's 
Day 'is perhaps the only festival of an Apostle 
claiming to be really on the anniversary of his death/ 
Nov. 30 is given as the day of his martyrdom in 
the apocryphal Acta Andreae, describing his death 
at Patras 2 . 

St James the Great (July 25), the son of 
Zebedee, does not appear very early. The day is not 
noticed in either the Leonine or the Gelasian Sacra- 
mentary, and made its way to general acceptance 
but slowly. In the canons of the Council of Oxford 
(a.d. 1222) it does not appear among the chief 
festivals for general observance in England, although 

1 Other festivals connected with St Andrew are noticed in 
D.G.A. 

2 Ministry of Grace, 419. 



FESTIVALS OF APOSTLES AND OTHERS 65 

in England it was certainly a,festum chori long before 
that date. 

It would seem (Acts xii. 2, 3) that the death of 
James took place about the time of the Paschal com- 
memoration ; the Coptic Kalendar marks St James's 
day on April 12, and the Syrian lectionary of Antioch 
on April 30, on which day also the Greek Church 
keeps a festival of St James, using for the Epistle 
Acts xii. 1, etc. The placing of the festival in the 
West so far from Easter as July 25, suggests that 
the latter date was connected with some translation 
of relics, or such like. 

As we have already seen (p. 16) the ancient Syriac 
Kalendar edited originally by Wright, commemorates 
James together with his brother John on Dec. 27. 

St John, Apostle and Evangelist. The 
principal festival on Dec. 27 is found in the fourth 
century in the East, where he was conjoined with 
James. Traces of this conjunction are to be found 
in the West. It is interesting to find in the Gothic 
Missal, printed by Muratori, a mass for the Natale 
of the Apostles James and John placed between 
St Stephen and Holy Innocents. And in the Hiero- 
nymian Martyrology we find at Dec. 27 'the ordina- 
tion to the episcopate of St James, the Lord's brother 
[a confusion], and the assumption of St John, the 
Evangelist, at Ephesus.' 

The Greek Church commemorates the metastasis, 
or migration of John, on Sept. 26, and an important 
festival in honour of the holy dust (called manna) 
from his tomb at Ephesus on May 8. 

D. 5 



66 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

St John before the Latin gate (May 6). 

The story of the caldron of boiling oil is as old as 
Tertullian (de Praescript. c. 36). But of the festival 
there is no notice before the closing years of the 
eighth century. The day of the month probably 
marks the date of the dedication of a church near 
the Latin gate 1 . It is characteristically a Western 
festival. In the Roman rite it was, about the 
thirteenth century, a semi-double : it was made a 
double by Pius V (1566 — 1572), and a greater double 
by Clement VIII (1592—1605). 

St Matthew (Sept. 21) : in the Greek, Russian, 
Syrian and Armenian Churches, Nov. 16 : in the 
Egyptian and Ethiopic Kalendars of Ludolf, Oct. 9. 
The festival of Sept. 21 is certainly late in appearing. 
It is wanting in the Leonine, Gelasian, and Gallican 
Sacramentaries, and in Muratori's edition of the 
Gregorian. It is found, however, generally in the 
martyrologies, which fact, of course, does not 
necessarily imply that there was any liturgical 
observance of the day 2 . 

St Luke (Oct. 18) ; and on the same day 
generally in the East. The day perhaps marks a 
translation of relics in the East, as is stated in the 
so-called Hieronymian Martyrology. St Luke does 
not appear in the older Sacramentaries ; but in some 
manuscripts of the Gregorian we find a proper 
preface for St Luke on v Kal. Nov. (Oct. 28). 

St Mark (April 25): on the same day in the 

1 See Duchesne, Chr. Worship, E. tr. 281. 
a See Sinker's article in D. O. A. 



FESTIVALS OF APOSTLES AND OTHERS 67 

East. The day is of late appearance, not perhaps 
before the ninth century. The great processional 
litanies on April 25 appear at Rome long before 
St Mark's name was attached to the day. In their 
origin these litanies were distinctively Roman. 

St Philip and St James (May 1). This was 
the day of the dedication of a church at Rome in 
their honour in the second half of the sixth century. 
The word natale is applied at a later time to the 
day ; which may have been in error, or, as can be 
proved by many examples, the word natale came 
to be used loosely as equivalent to festival or com- 
memoration. In the Greek Church St James, 'the 
brother of God/ is commemorated on Oct. 23, and 
St Philip, 'one of the twelve/ on Nov. 14. The 
Greeks celebrate Philip, the deacon, on Oct. 11, and 
he appears in Usuard's Martyrology at June 6. 

Why Philip and James should be associated we 
know not. The deposition of relics of both at the 
time of the dedication of the church at Rome may 
perhaps account for the conjunction of the names. 

St Simon and St Jude (Oct. 28). Legend 
associates these two Apostles as having together 
laboured for thirteen years in Persia, and as there 
dying martyrs' deaths. In the Sacramentaries they 
do not appear till they are found in a late form of 
the Gregorian. In the East the commemoration of 
these Apostles is divided and a day assigned to each. 
In the Greek Church Simon Zelotes appears at 
May 10, and Judas (Thaddaeus) at June 19. 

St Thorn as > Apostle and Martyr (Dec. 21) ; 

5—2 



68 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

his Translation is marked at July 3 in the West. 
In the Greek Church St Thomas is commemorated 
on Oct. 6, a day also observed by the Syrians, who 
add a translation on July 3. In the fourth century 
there was a magnificent basilica of St Thomas at 
Edessa, and to this church the remains of the Apostle 
were translated (from India according to the legend) 
before the close of the century. St Thomas (at 
Dec. 21) is not found in the Leonine, and only in 
some texts of the Gregorian Sacramentary. He 
appears, however, in the Gelasian. 

St Bartholomew (Aug. 24) ; and at Rome on 
Aug. 25. The Latin churches generally, including 
that of mediaeval England, observed Aug. 24. The 
Greek Church commemorates Bartholomew together 
with Barnabas on June 11, and a translation of the 
relics of Bartholomew on Aug. 25. In the West 
the introduction of the feast was late. There is 
no trace of it in the early forms of the great 
Sacramentaries 1 . 

St John the Baptist, the Nativity (June 24) ; 
so too in the Greek Church. The date was doubtless 
assigned on the strength of the inference drawn from 
the Gospels, that the birth of the baptist preceded 
that of the Saviour by six months. It appeared 
early, and was a recognised day in the time of 
St Augustine 2 . It has its masses in the Sacra- 
mentaries from the Leonine downwards. 

1 For variations as to the day of observance see Baillet, and 
Sinker in B.C. A, 

2 Serm. 196, 287. 



FESTIVALS OF APOSTLES AND OTHERS 69 

The Decollation of St John the Baptist 

(generally Aug. 29). This festival is also early, but, 
so far as evidence goes, not so early as the Nativity 1 . 
It was known in Gaul before it was adopted at Rome. 
The Greek churches celebrate the day on Aug. 29 2 . 

The Conversion of St Paul (Jan. 25), was of 
late introduction. It does not appear in the correct 
text of Bede's Martyrology, and in only late texts 
of the Gregorian Sacramentary. There is reason for 
believing that the day was first observed to mark 
the translation of relics of St Paul at Rome, for so 
it appears in the Hieronymian Martyrology, and the 
period of transition seems to be marked in the 
Martyrology of Rabanus Maurus (ninth century), 
where we find at Jan. 25, 'Translation and Con- 
version of St Paul/ It is not found in England in 
the Pontifical of Egbert, Archbishop of York (a.d. 
732 — 766), but it appears in the Leofric Missal, in 
the second half of the eleventh century. It is 
unknown in the Greek Church. 

St Mary Magdalene (July 22), who is identi- 
fied in the West with the woman who was a sinner, 
and with Mary the sister of Lazarus, is distinguished 
from each of these in the Greek service-books which 
also mark her festival on July 22. Among the 
Easterns she is thought of as 'the holy myrrh- 
bearer,' one of the women who brought the spices 

1 [It is found in the Gelasian and in some f orms of the Gregorian 
Sacramentary. Edd.] 

2 For other variations as to the day see Sinker's article in 
D.C.A. 



70 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

to the tomb of the Lord. In various places in the 
West, though not at Rome, the day was a day of 
obligation in the middle ages. It appears in some 
service-books in the tenth and eleventh centuries, 
but not in missals, secundum consuetudinem Romanae 
curiae , till the thirteenth 1 . 

There was a festival of St Mary Magdalene 
(July 22) in the English Prayer Book of 1549. The 
collect and gospel (Luke vii. 36 to the end of the 
chapter) show that no English Reformers identified 
the Magdalene with the woman who was a sinner. 
The festival disappears in the Prayer Book of 1552. 

St Barnabas, the Apostle (June 11). The 
Greeks commemorate on this day ' Bartholomew and 
Barnabas, Apostles.' The festival probably marks 
the supposed finding of the body of Barnabas (having 
a copy of St Matthew's Gospel in his hand) in the 
island of Cyprus in the fifth century. Barnabas is 
not found at June 11 in the so-called Hieronymian 
Martyrology ; nor in the Martyrology known as 
Gellonense, but it is noted in Bede (though there is 
some doubt whether the entry is not due to Florus), 
and in the later Martyrologies. 

The Greek Church commemorates (many of them 
with proper names attached) the seventy disciples 
of Luke x. 1, called in the service-books 'apostles.' 

Octaves. The word Octave is used sometimes 
for the eighth day after a festival, sometimes (in 
later documents) for the space of eight days which 
follow the festival. It may be regarded as an echo 

1 KeUner, 313. 



FESTIVALS OF APOSTLES AND OTHERS 71 

or prolongation of the festival. In the Eastern 
Church what is known as the Apodosis (see p. 135) 
in a measure corresponds to the Western Octave. 
It has not unreasonably been conjectured that they 
owe their origin to an imitation of the festal practices 
of the Hebrews (Levit. xxiii. 6; Num. xxviii. 17; 
Deut. xvi. 3). Octaves were originally few : they 
appear first in connexion with Easter and Pentecost, 
and, occasionally, with the Epiphany. In the eighth 
and ninth centuries Octaves became more numerous. 
Yet in the Corbie Kalendar (a.d. 826), assuming 
that the movable feasts of Easter and Pentecost had 
their Octaves, we find in addition only the Octaves 
of Christmas, Epiphany, Peter and Paul, Lawrence 
and Andrew. This falls in well with what is said 
by Amalarius (about the same date) who, after 
noticing the Octaves of Christmas, Epiphany, Easter, 
and Pentecost, adds, ' We are accustomed to celebrate 
the Octaves of the natalitia of some saints, that is, 
of those whose festivals are esteemed as more illus- 
trious amongst us ' (De ecclesiasticis officiis, iv. 36). 
At Rome we find St Agnes having an Octave (Jan. 
28) at a date earlier than that with which we have 
been dealing 1 ; and even to-day in the Roman Missal 
and Breviary there is an interesting survival in the 
persistence of the old name, Agnetis secundo, and 
of 'propers' for the day. Liturgically, the ancient 
practice in the West was to insert a simple com- 
memoration on the eighth day of festivals. 

The prolongation of a festival for eight days may 

1 See the Gelasian and Gregorian Sacramentaries, 



72 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

be found illustrated by the practice of the Church 
at Jerusalem in the fourth century, as recounted by 
' Silvia' in her descriptions of the Epiphany, the 
Pascha, and the feast of the dedication of the churches 
known as the Martyrium and the Church of the 
Resurrection. 

The] great multiplication of Octaves in mediaeval 
times has been attributed to the influence of the 
Franciscans, who in the language of Kellner ' provided 
an inordinate number of Octaves in their Breviary, 
and observed each day of the Octave with the rite 
of &festum duplex 1 .' 

The somewhat elaborate rules with respect to 
Octaves and their relation to the observance of other 
festivals, as enjoined in the modern Roman rite, can 
be found in such technical works as those of Gavantus 
and Ferraris. It must suffice here to observe that 
within the Octaves of Christmas, Easter, Pentecost, 
the Epiphany, and Corpus Christi, Votive and Re- 
quiem masses are prohibited. 

Vigils. The origin of vigils is obscure. The 
proper service of each Lord's Day was preceded in 
early times by what may be regarded as something 
like a vigil, a service before the dawn of day ; and 
some think that this view may be deduced from 
Pliny's well-known letter to Trajan. But in this 
there would seem, perhaps, to be a reading into the 
document of more than its contents warrant. How- 
ever this may be, we find as early as Tertullian that 
there were among Christians 'nocturnae convo- 

1 Heortology, p/15. 



FESTIVALS OF APOSTLES AND OTHERS 73 

cationes/ the solemnities of the Pascha being more 
particularly referred to 1 . The exact nature and object 
of these assemblies are not described. Evidence is 
more full at a later date for vigils of some kind, not 
only before the Lord's Day but also before the Sab- 
bath 2 . At the period when ' Silvia' visited Jerusalem 
the faithful seem to have engaged in services before 
the dawn on every Lord's Day. And in Gaul in the 
fifth century, as we gather from Sidonius Apollinaris 3 , 
the vigils were not all night-watches but services 
before day-break. About a century later than 
Tertullian, we find the Council of Elvira, near 
Granada, some time in the first quarter of the fourth 
century, enacting a canon (35), declaring that women 
should not spend the night-watches (pervigilent) 
in cemeteries, ' because often under the pretext 
of prayer they secretly commit serious offences 
(scelera).' There is no further explanation ; and 
the probable conjecture has been offered that it may 
have been the practice to have vigils in the cemeteries 
on the night before the oblation was offered at the 
tomb of one of the martyrs. That there was in 
Spain at this date some kind of service in the 
cemeteries seems not improbable from the fact that 
the canon immediately preceding that which we 
have noticed forbids the lighting of wax tapers in 
cemeteries in the day time. 

By the end of the fourth century, there is ample 

1 Ad Uxor. ii. 4. 

2 See for details of evidence Bingham, bk. xiii. c. 9. 
8 Epp. lib. v. 17. 



74 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

evidence for the observance of nocturnal or early- 
morning vigils before the greater festivals in both 
East and West. Early in the fifth century Vigil- 
antius protested against the scandals which arose 
from the nocturnal watchings in the basilicas, and 
for this, among other assaults upon the current 
abuses and superstitions of the time, he drew upon 
himself the violent and coarse invective of Jerome. 
Yet Jerome himself may be quoted for the fact that 
there were moral dangers attending these nocturnal 
vigils, for while advising the lady Laeta to inure her 
daughter, the younger Paula, to days of vigil and 
solemn pernoctations, he warns her that she should 
keep the girl close by her side 1 . To Pope Boniface I 
(a.d. 418 — 422) has been attributed the prohibition 
of nocturnal vigils in the Roman cemeteries. 

With regard to the Paschal Vigil, Jerome ex- 
presses the opinion that it originated in the belief 
that Christ would come again in the night of the 
Pascha 2 . 

In process of time, the day before the feast 
(dies profestus) assumed the name of vigil, and was 
in the West commonly, though not universally, 
associated with a fast. Mediaeval ritualists, such 
as Honorius of Autun (who died a little after a.d. 
1130), connect the change with the popular abuses 
of the nocturnal vigils. 

There is an interesting letter of Innocent III 
(about a.d. 1213), laying down the rule in the 

1 Ep. ad Laetam, 9. 

2 Comment, in Matth. xxv. 6. 



FESTIVALS OF APOSTLES AND OTHERS 75 

Roman Church, which still prevails. The vigils of 
the Apostles are to be observed as fasts, with the 
exception of St John the Evangelist and St Philip 
and St James, the former occurring in the season of 
Christmas, and the latter in that of Easter 1 . Beside 
the vigils of the Apostles, the vigils of Christmas 
and the Assumption are fasts de jure, and by 
custom the vigils of Pentecost, the Nativity of 
the Baptist, St Lawrence, and All Saints. These 
rules were often locally modified by papal indults. 

1 This letter is to be found in the Corpus Juris Canonici, 
Decretal, lib. iii. tit. 46. 



CHAPTER VII 

SEASONS OF PKEPAKATION AND PENITENCE 

Advent 

Advent, as the term is now employed, signifies 
a season, regarded as preparatory to the Festival 
of the Nativity of the Lord, including four Sundays 
and a variable number of days, as affected by the 
day of the week upon which December 25 falls. 

As no evidence has been adduced for an estab- 
lished celebration of the Feast of the Nativity before 
the fourth century, so it is obvious that we cannot 
expect to find the appointment of a season of pre- 
paration before that date. As a matter of fact, it 
would seem that the earliest distinct notice of such 
a season, prescribed for general use, belongs to the 
latter part of the sixth century; and that the prac- 
tice originated in Gaul. In a small council held at 
Tours about a.d. 567 there is vaguely indicated a 
fast for monks in December, to be kept every day 
'usque ad natale domini' (can. 17). A few years 
later, in the south of Gaul, we find what seems a 
canon of general application, but less exacting in 
regard to the number of days on which the fast was 



SEASONS OF PENITENCE AND FASTING 77 

to be observed. In the ninth canon of the Council 
of M&con (a.d. 581) it is enjoined that from the 
festival of St Martin (Nov. 11) the second, fourth 
and sixth days of the week should be fasting days, 
that the sacrifices should be celebrated in the quad- 
ragesimal order, and that on these days the canons 
(probably meaning the canons of this synod) should 
be read, so that no one could plead that he erred 
through ignorance. We have here something that 
at once reminds us of the pre-paschal season, as 
observed in some Churches. The season came to 
be known as Quadragesima 8. Martini, But the 
length of this season (as was also true of Lent) seems 
to have varied much. The six Sundays which it 
covered, as we may infer from the canon of M&con 
referred to above, we find indicated probably by the 
six missae of Sundays of Advent in the Ambrosian 
and Mozarabic rites. Yet the oldest Gallican Sacra- 
mentary records only three Sundays, and the Gothic- 
Gallican only two 1 . 

In England, as we learn from Bede, forty days 
of fasting 'ante natale domini' were observed by 
Cuthbert (t 687) and by Ecbert (t 729). In both 
cases, however, it should be remarked, the observ- 
ance seems mentioned as an indication of exceptional 
piety 2 . 

At the close of the sixth century Rome, under 
Gregory the Great, adopted the rule of the four 
Sundays in Advent; and in the following century 

1 Muratori, Liturg. Bom. n. 786—790: 702—703. 

2 H.E. iv. 30: ni. 27. 



78 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

this rule became prevalent (though not universal) 
in the West. 

In the Greek Church the general observance of 
forty days' penitential preparation for Christmas does 
not appear to have been established before the thir- 
teenth century. In the Greek Church of to-day the 
forty days' preparation begins on Nov. 15. It is 
sometimes called the Fast of St Philip, doubtless 
because the festival of St Philip was celebrated on 
Nov. 14. On Wednesdays and Fridays the fast is 
rigorous ; but on other days, wine, oil, and fish are 
allowed. 

The practice of the Armenians is peculiar : they 
observe a fast for the week preceding the Nativity, 
and for one week commencing fifty days before the 
Nativity. The conjecture has been offered that 
these two weeks are a survival of a fast that had 
originally lasted for the whole of fifty days. 

In Churches of the Roman Communion at the 
present day, the practice as to fasting varies. In 
Great Britain and Ireland Wednesdays and Fridays 
are expected to be observed ; but in many parts of 
the continent of Europe there is no distinction be- 
tween weeks in Advent and ordinary weeks. 

On December 16 in the West it was the practice 
to sing as an antiphon to the Magnificat the first 
of a series of seven antiphons, each beginning with 
'0 '; thus, '0 Sapientia' (Dec. 16), '0 Adonai' (17), 
'0 Radix Jesse' (18), etc. In the Kalendar of the 
Book of Common Prayer the words '0 Sapientia' 
appear at Dec. 16. This is not, strictly speaking, 



SEASONS OF PENITENCE AND FASTING 79 

a survival of mediaeval times ; for it was first intro- 
duced into the English Prayer Book Kalendar in 
a.d. 1604. 

The rule of the English Book of Common Prayer 
(1662) for determining Advent runs thus: 'Advent 
Sunday is always the nearest Sunday to the Feast 
of St Andrew, whether before or after/ As thus 
expressed, the rule does not seem to contemplate 
the case of Advent Sunday falling on St Andrew's 
Day. It was a mistake not to add the additional 
words which were in the Scottish Prayer Book of 
1637, namely, 'or that Sunday which falleth upon 
any day from the twenty-seventh of November 
to the third of December inclusively.' The word 
'or' does not imply that the second part of the 
rule is an equivalent of the first; but it gives a 
rule to meet a case not contemplated in the first 
part. 

The Fast preceding Easter (Lent) 

That a fast preliminary to the Pascha was ob- 
served in the early Church is beyond question. 
Irenaeus, in his letter to Victor, bishop of Rome 1 , 
states that at the time there were several differences 
as to the length of the fast ; but in no case was 
a prolonged series of days prescribed. 'Some/ he 
says, 'think they ought to fast one day; others, 
two ; others more than two ; others reckon together 
forty hours both of the day and the night as the 

i See p. 110. 



80 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

day [of fasting] 1 / And Irenaeus adds that these 
differences existed long before (noXv irporepov) the 
time when he wrote. The words about the forty 
hours may perhaps be illustrated by passages of 
Tertullian 2 , where he speaks of persons fasting in 
the days 'when the bridegroom was taken away/ 
or, in other words, the time during which the Lord 
was under the power of death, i.e. certain hours of 
the day of the Crucifixion, the twenty-four hours 
of Saturday, and certain hours of the early part of 
Easter Day. We shall not delay to discuss the 
questions connected with the exact time of com- 
mencing and of closing the forty hours. 

About the middle of the third century at Alex- 
andria the whole week before Easter was observed 
as a time of fasting by some ; but there were those 
who fasted only on four days; others contented 
themselves with three or even two ; while there were 
some (evidently exceptional persons) who did not 
fast even one day 3 . It is plain that as yet no fixed 
rule was enforced. 

In the fourth century we meet with the term 
reacrapaKoa-TT], or Quadragesima. In the fifth canon 
of the Council of Nicaea it is ordered that one of 

1 Enseb. H.E. v. 24. The words as to the forty hours are not 
unattended with difficulty; but the interpretation given above is 
that adopted by the soundest scholars. See Duchesne (Christ. 
Worship, E. tr., p. 241), and the notes on the place by Valesius. 
The meaning is probably that no food was partaken for forty 
continuous hours. 

2 de JejuniOy 2, 13, 14. 

3 Dionysius of Alexandria, Ep. to Basilides, in Feltoe, Letters 
of Dionysius of Alex., p. 94 f. 



SEASONS OF PENITENCE AND FASTING 81 

the two annual provincial Synods should be held 
before 'the tessarakoste/ The sense of the term 
is assumed to be known, and is not explained. But 
it must not be inferred that the word necessarily 
signifies here forty days, or that forty days were 
assigned to fasting. 

The classical authority for the variations of later 
usages is the passage of Socrates 1 , where he describes 
many differences of practice in his own day (c. a.d. 
440) and the varieties in the length of the fast in 
different countries. At Eome, he says, there was a 
fast of three weeks, excepting Saturdays and Sun- 
days; at Alexandria and in Achaia and Illyricum 
a fast of six weeks ; in other places the fast began 
seven weeks before Easter, but was limited to fifteen 
days, with an interval between each five days 2 . Not 
long after his time there were two prevailing usages 
— that of the Churches which deducted from the 
fasting days Sundays and Saturdays (always except- 
ing the Saturday in Holy Week), and that of the 
Churches which deducted only the Sundays. The 
former was the prevailing usage in the East ; the 
latter, in the West. The seven weeks in the East, 
with thirteen days deducted (seven Sundays and six 
Saturdays), and the six weeks of the West, with only 
six days deducted, agree precisely in each having 
only thirty-six fasting days. 

i H.E. v. 22. 

2 The account in Socrates cannot be confidently regarded as 
strictly accurate in some of its details. We cannot readily accept 
the statement that the Saturdays at Rome were not fasting days. 

D. 6 



82 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

At the time of the Peregrinatio Silviae (about 
the end of the fourth century), if we may trust the 
writer, at Jerusalem eight weeks of fasting preceded 
Easter, which, deducting eight Sundays and seven 
Saturdays, gave, as she expressly says, forty-one 
days of fasting. This is highly exceptional, if not 
unique. At any rate, the practice did not long 
continue. 

The number 36 is nearly the tenth of 365— the 
number of the days of the year ; and this thought 
struck the fancy of more than one writer. We were 
bound, they urged, to offer to God the holy tithe, 
not only of our increase, but of our time. And in 
the fifth century John Cassian presses this point, 
and attempts to bring the length of the fast to 
correspond more closely with the tithe of the year 
by observing that the fast was prolonged for some 
hours, ' usque in gallorum cantum/ on Easter 
morning 1 . 

At a later period the thought of the fasts of 
Moses and Elijah, and more particularly of the 
Lord's fast of forty days in the wilderness, seems to 
have suggested that the fast of the faithful should 
correspond in length. The addition of four days — 
the Wednesday and three following days immedi- 
ately preceding the first Sunday in Lent — has been 
frequently attributed to Gregory the Great. But 
the writings of Gregory testify to his knowing only 
thirty-six fasting days. And it is now generally 
acknowledged that no support for the supposition 

1 Collat. xxi. 25. 



SEASONS OF PENITENCE AND FASTING 83 

can be based on the language of the collects for 
Feria IV and Feria VI in the week begun on Quin- 
quagesima, which speak of the beginning of the fast, 
and are to be found in the Gregorian Sacramentary 1 . 
The Sacramentary, as we now possess it, abounds in 
additions later than the time of Gregory. 

It is impossible to say precisely when, or by whom, 
the additional four days were introduced. Approxi- 
mately we may assign this change to about the 
beginning of the eighth century, and to Rome. It 
did not obtain everywhere. It was not till near 
the close of the eleventh century that the Scottish 
Church, at the persuasion of the Saxon princess, 
Queen Margaret of Scotland, fell into line with most 
of the other Western Churches, by accepting the four 
fasting days in the week before the first Sunday in 
Lent 2 . The Mozarabic Liturgy adopted it only at 
the instance of Cardinal Ximenes about the begin- 
ning of the sixteenth century. The Church of Milan 
still preserves, among its interesting survivals, the 
commencement of the rigorous Lenten Fast on the 
Monday after the first Sunday. But in 1563 St 
Charles Borromeo, then archbishop of Milan, suc- 
ceeded, against vigorous local protests, in making 
the first Sunday in Lent a day of abstinence. 

The term caput jejunii was applied sometimes to 
the Wednesday, known as Ash Wednesday, and fre- 
quently in service-books to the period of the four 
days preceding the first Sunday in Lent. Thus, 



1 Liturgia Romana Vetus (Muratori), n. 28, 29. 

2 Vita S. Margaritae, c. ii. § 18. 



6—2 



84 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

these days are designated ' Feria IV, Feria V, Feria 
VI, et Sabbatum, in capite jejunii.' The distribution 
of ashes on the Wednesday in the Western Church 
is a much modified survival and relic of the ancient 
penitential discipline. 

In the Orthodox Church of the East at the 
present day 'the great and holy Tessarakoste ' con- 
tains, as in the West, six Sundays. But the Lenten 
offices commence at Vespers on the Sunday (known 
as Tyrinis, or Tyrophagus) preceding the first Sunday 
in Lent. In the week preceding this Sunday (corre- 
sponding to the Western Quinquagesima) the faithful 
give up the use of flesh meat, and confine themselves 
to cheese (rvpos) and other lacticinia. And it may 
be observed, in passing, that in the Greek Church 
there are other examples of the week being named 
from the Sunday which follows it. Thus, ' the week 
of Palms ' is the week followed by Palm Sunday 1 . 
The Sunday (our Sexagesima) preceding Tyrinis is 
called Apocreos {Dominica carnisprivii). It is the 
last day upon which flesh may be eaten. After the 
Sunday ' Tyrinis ? a more rigorous fast is prescribed ; 
but Sundays and Saturdays (except the Saturday in 
Holy week) are exempted, so that there are only 
thirty-six days of rigid fasting; five days in each 
of the first six weeks, and six days in the last week 2 . 

The word quadragesima is the source of the 

1 See pp. 143 f . 

2 The whole subject of the Lent of the Eastern Church is very 
fully dealt with by Nilles in his Kalendarium Manuale and by 
Prince Maximilian of Saxony in his Praelectiones de Liturgiis 
Orientalibus, 1908. 



SEASONS OF PENITENCE AND FASTING 85 

Italian quaresima, and the French careme (in old 
French, quaresme) ; while our English word, Lent, 
is simply indicative of the season of the year when 
the fast occurs, being derived from the Anglo-Saxon 
Lencten, the spring-time. 



Other Special Times of Fasting 

I. Western Church — The three fasts called ' Quadra- 
gesima ' ; Rogation Days ; the Four Seasons. 

In addition to Advent, which, as we have seen, is 
sometimes spoken of as the quadragesima of St 
Martin, and Lent (quadragesima ante Pascha) 1 , we 
find in the eighth, ninth and tenth centuries in 
writers of Germany, France, Britain, and Ireland 
references to a third quadragesima which is styled 
sometimes the quadragesima after Pentecost, and 
sometimes the quadragesima before St John the 
Baptist. In the Paenitentiale of Theodore, Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury (t a.d. 690), it is declared that 
4 there are three fasts established by law (jejunia 
legitima) for the people generally (per populum) 2 , 
forty days and nights before Pascha, when we pay 
the tithes of the year, and forty before the Nativity 
of the Lord, and forty after Pentecost 3 .' The remark- 
able collection of canons of the ancient Irish Church, 
which is known as the Hibernensis, is of uncertain 

1 See pp. 77, 80 f. 2 Another reading is pro populo. 

3 Paenitentiale, n.xiv. 1 (Haddon and Stubbs, Councils, in. 202). 



86 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

date, but is attributed by such eminent authorities 
as Wasserschleben, Henry Bradshaw, Whitley Stokes, 
and J. B. Bury, to the end of the seventh or early 
part of the eighth century. The three penitential 
seasons called quadragesima are distinctly referred 
to 1 . In the Capitula of Charlemagne, priests are 
directed to announce to the people that these three 
seasons are legitima jejunia. In the canons collected 
by Burchard, Bishop of Worms (a.d. 1006), the three 
seasons called quadragesima are referred to, and the 
third is defined as the forty days before the festival 
of St John the Baptist. Many interesting questions 
are suggested by these passages with which we are 
unable to deal here. It must suffice to say that the 
quadragesima after Pentecost did not long survive. 
It disappeared, and has left no mark upon the 
Church's year. 

Rogation Days. There is a general agreement 
that the observance of the Monday, Tuesday, and 
Wednesday before the Ascension as days of special 
prayer and fasting, owes its origin to Mamertus, 
bishop of Vienne (about a.d. 470), who appointed 
litanies or rogations to be said, at a time when the 
people of his city were in great terror by reason 
of a severe earthquake and a conflagration con- 
sequent thereupon. The shaken walls and the 
destruction of public buildings, as vividly described 



1 * In tribus quadragesimis anni et in dominica die et in f eriis 
quartis et in sextis f eriis conjuges continere se debent.' Lib. xlvi. 
c. 11: Wasserschleben, Die Irische Kanonensammlung (ed. 1885), 
p. 187. 



SEASONS OF PENITENCE AND FASTING 87 

by Sidonius Apollinaris, may have suggested prac- 
tical reasons for the litanies being chanted out of 
doors. The practice of Rogations soon spread 
through the whole of Gaul, and in the Council of 
Orleans (a.d. 511), where thirty-two bishops were 
present, the three days' fast, with Rogations, was 
enjoined upon all their churches. In England, the 
practice of observing the Rogations had evidently 
been long established when the Council of Cloveshoe 
(a.d. 747) enjoined it * according to the custom of 
our predecessors.' At Rome, in the opinion of 
Baillet, and recently of Duchesne, the Rogation 
days were not introduced till about a.d. 800 \ 

In the East there is nothing corresponding to the 
Rogation Days ; and the ordinary fast of Wednesday 
is on the Wednesday before Ascension Day relaxed 
by a dispensation for oil, wine, and fish ; for in the 
East the dies profestus commonly possesses some- 
thing of a festal character, anticipatory of the morrow. 

In the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle the term 'gang- 
days ' is used more than once for the Rogation days ; 
and in the Laws of Athelstan we find ' gang-days ' and 
'gang-week.' The name originated in the walking 
in procession on these days. 

The Fasts of the Pour Seasons (jejunia 
quatuor temporurn). The earliest distinct reference to 
these fasts is to be found in the Sermons of Pope Leo I 
(a.d. 440 — 461), who speaks of the spring fast being 
in Lent, the summer fast ' in Pentecost/ the autumn 
fast in the seventh, and the winter fast in the tenth 

1 The Great Litany on St Mark's day at Kome was much earlier. 



88 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

month. From St Leo we also learn that the fast was 
on Wednesday and Friday, and that on the Saturday 
a vigil was observed at St Peter's 1 . The observance 
is characteristically Roman, and is found at first only 
at Rome, and in Churches in immediate dependence 
on Rome. Duchesne holds that the weeks in which 
these fasts occurred differed from other weeks mainly 
in the rigour of the fast, i.e. 'the substitution of a 
real fast for the half-fast of the ordinary stations.' 
And he adds the suggestion that on the Wednesday 
of the Four Seasons, if not on the Friday, the Eucha- 
rist was from the outset celebrated 2 . 

In England the Council of Cloveshoe (a.d. 747) 
enjoins that no one should neglect ' the fasts of the 
fourth, seventh, and tenth month/ The omission 
of any notice of the Ember days in Lent will be 
noticed later on. 

In the Churches of Gaul we do not find the 
Ember days established long before the time of 
Charlemagne. 

At first we find no trace of a connexion between the 
Ember seasons and the holding of ordinations ; and, 
as is observed by Dr Sinker, ' everything points to the 
conclusion that the solemnity attaching to the seasons 
led to their being chosen as fitting times for the 
riteV 

The Sacramentary that is known as St Leo's 

1 See Serm. xix. 2 ; lxxx. 4. 

2 For the reasons for his ingenious conjecture see Christian 
Worship, E. tr. p. 223. 

3 See Sinker's scholarly article ' Ember Days ' in the Dictionary 
of Christian Antiquities, for many valuable details. 



SEASONS OF PENITENCE AND FASTING 89 

exhibits ' propers' for masses of the fasts in the 
fourth, seventh, and tenth months, i.e. June, Sep- 
tember and December 1 ; and from these we can 
gather that on ' the festival of the fasts ' assemblies 
and processions had been made on the Wednesdays 
and Fridays, and a vigil (with the Eucharist) held 
on the Saturdays. In these there is not only no 
reference to ordinations of the clergy, but also no 
reference that would suggest the special intention 
and significance of these days of fasting. The con- 
jecture is not unreasonable that there was the desire 
to dedicate in penitence the year in its four several 
parts to the service of God ; but neither the history 
nor the literature of the early Church is decisive in 
confirming the conjecture. 

The practice of the Church at Rome spread 
gradually, with some varieties as to the particular 
weeks in which the three days of fasting were ob- 
served. For England the notices of the Ember days 
are earlier than they are for France. At first, at 
Rome, the spring fast seems to have been in the 
first week in March, but afterwards always in Lent. 
And as soon as it came to be observed in Lent it 
would (as regards the fast) require no special injunc- 
tion. This may perhaps account for the omission of 
any mention of the fast of the first month in the 
canon of the Council of Cloveshoe referred to above. 
The fixing of the particular days now observed in the 
West is generally assigned to about the close of the 
eleventh century ; but in England, as late as a.d. 1222, 

1 The MS. is wanting for the part before April. 



90 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

the Council of Oxford still speaks of the fast in the 
first week in March 1 . 

In the Eastern Church there is nothing corre- 
sponding to the fasts of the Four Seasons. 

There is some uncertainty as to the etymology of our 
English phrase ' Ember Days.' The weight of authority 
is in favour of the derivation from the Old English words 
ynib, ' about/ 'round,' and ryne, 'course,' 'running' ; but the 
New English Dictionary (Oxford) adds that it is not wholly 
impossible that the word may have been due to popular 
etymology working upon some vulgar Latin corruption of 
quatuor tempora, as the German quatember, 'ember tide.' 

II. Eastern Churches. 

The fasts before the Nativity and Easter have 
been treated of under Advent and Lent. In the 
Greek Church the season before Easter is called 
'the great Tessarakoste/ for the word Tessara- 
koste is also applied to three other penitential 
seasons, (1) to the fast before the Lord's Nativity, 

(2) the fast of the Apostles (Peter and Paul), and 

(3) the fast of the Assumption of the Theotokos. 
But, though the word Tessarakoste is applied to 
each of these, there is no apparent connexion be- 
tween the number forty and the number of days 
observed as fasting-days ; and this is notably the 
case in regard to the third and fourth. The fast 

1 Can. 8 (Labbe xi. 274). It is to be observed that in the 
Leofric Missal, of much earlier date, the Ember days are noted as 
falling in the first week of Lent ; in the week of Pentecost ; in the 
full week before the autumnal equinox ; and in the full week before 
the Nativity. 



SEASONS OF PENITENCE AND FASTING 91 

of the Apostles extends for a variable number of 
days from the Monday after the Sunday of All 
Saints {i.e. the first Sunday after Pentecost) to 
June 28, both inclusive. 

Examination will show that the interval between 
these two limits can very rarely amount to forty 
days ; and when Easter falls at its latest possible 
date (April 25) the first Sunday after Pentecost is 
June 20, so that the Tessarakoste of the Apostles 
would in that case be only eight days in length. 

The length of the Tessarakoste of the Assump- 
tion is fixed, and extends only from Aug. 1 to 
Aug. 14. 

It would appear then that the term Tessarakoste 
has come in practice to signify simply a fast of a 
number of days, and has lost all reference to the 
number 40. 

The Exaltation of the Cross (Sept. 14), although 
regarded as a festival {^oprrj) of the highest dignity, 
is observed as a strict fast. 

The same is true of the Decollation of the Fore- 
runner (Aug. 29), because of 'the murder of him 
who is greater than all the prophets.' When it is 
remembered that all Wednesdays as well as Fridays 
are fasting days, it will not be a surprise to be told 
that the fasting days of the Greek Church amount 
in each year to some 190 in number. 

The Armenians on fast-days abstain from flesh, 
milk, butter, eggs, and oil. Every day in Lent except 
Sundays is kept as a fast. Among peculiar ob- 
servances is (1) the Fast of Nineveh, for two weeks 



92 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

commencing in the week before our Septuagesima. 
It is called by the Armenians Aratschavor-atz, 
meaning, it is said, 'preceding abstinence/ and this 
term has taken shape among the Greeks as ' Art- 
ziburion.' In the frequent controversies between 
the Greeks and Armenians the former denounce this 
fast as execrable and satanic. (2) The Armenians 
also observe as a fast the week after Pentecost. It 
has been maintained that in early times this fast 
was observed in the week before Pentecost, and that 
afterwards, in compliance with the general rule that 
the days between Easter and Pentecost should not 
be observed as fasts, a change was made. 



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[Portiforiam S. Oswaldi.) Corpus Christi College, Cambridge 
(MS. 391)- Circa a.d. 1064. 



CHAPTER VIII 

WESTERN MEDIAEVAL KALENDARS : 
MARTYROLOGIES 

The word Martyrology has been sometimes applied 
to mere records of names placed opposite days of 
the month, like the document which goes under 
the name of Liberius (see p, 14), as well as to the 
fuller and more elaborate accounts of saints and 
martyrs, with often something of biographical detail, 
and notices of time and place, and (in the case of 
martyrs) the manner of the passions, such as are to 
be found, for example, in the Martyrology of Bede, 
and more particularly in the additions of Florus, 
and the Martyrologies of Ado and Usuard. 

The study of the Martyrologies is surrounded 
by many difficulties. They were again and again 
copied, and re-handled. It demands much know- 
ledge and critical acumen to sever from the docu- 
ments as they have come down to us later additions, 
so that we may get at what may reasonably be re- 
garded as the original texts. Such work is always 
attended with considerable uncertainty, and scholars 
are often divided in opinion as to the results 1 . 

1 The study of the Martyrologies of Bede, Florus, Ado, and 
Usuard has been recently approached in the true scientific spirit 



94 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

The influence of the later Martyrologies upon 
the mediaeval Kalendars of the West is marked. 
Bede's valuable work is the outcome of honest and 
patient research; many days, however, were left 
blank— an offence to the professional Martyrologist. 
It was much enlarged, about one hundred years after 
his death, by one Florus, who (with some differences 
of opinion) is generally supposed to have been a 
sub-deacon of Lyons. Ado, bishop of Vienne, some 
twenty or thirty years later than Florus, prepared 
an extensive Martyrology, which, together with the 
work of Florus, was in turn utilised and abridged 
about a.d. 875 by Usuard, a priest and Benedictine 
monk of the monastery of St Germain-des-Prfe, then 
outside the walls of Paris, who undertook his work 
at the instance of the Emperor Charles the Bald. 
The book when completed was dedicated to the 
Emperor; and before long Usuard's Martyrology 
came in general to supersede previous attempts of 
the same kind. Its influence on subsequent mediaeval 
Kalendars is unmistakeable. Usuard came to be 
adopted almost universally for use. 

In monasteries and cathedral churches it was 
a common practice to read aloud each day, some- 
times in chapter, sometimes in choir, after Prime, 
the part of the Martyrology which had reference to 
the commemorations of the day or of the following 

by Dom Henri Quentin, of Solesmes. Manuscripts in the various 
libraries of Europe have been examined and classified, and the 
sources of the entries traced in most cases with great success. 
See this writer's Les Marty rologes historiques du moyen age (1908). 



WESTERN KALENDARS 95 

day, together with notices of obits and anniversaries 
of members of the ecclesiastical corporation and of 
benefactors, which on the following day would be 
observed. Indeed, in later times the name Martyr- 
ology is not infrequently applied to the mere lists 
of such obits and anniversaries. The mediaeval 
martyrologies are generally Usuard's, but they have 
local additions. 

The student who desires to know something of other 
early Martyrologies, such as that which is called the 
Hieronymian, the Lesser Roman, and the Martyrology 
of Rabanus, bishop of Mainz, may consult Kellner 
(pp. 401 — 410) and Mr Birk's article, Martyrology, in 
D. C. A. Since the publication of the latter article the 
Henry Bradshaw Society has issued, under the competent 
editorship of Mr Whitley Stokes, the metrical Martyrology 
of Oengus the Culdee (about a.d. 800) and the metrical 
Martyrology of Gorman (latter part of the twelfth century), 
which are of much value in illustrating the hagiology of 
the Irish Church. The scanty materials for the study 
of Scottish mediaeval Kalendars (all of them late) have 
been gathered together by Bishop A. P. Forbes in his 
Kalendars of Scottish Saints, 1872. The Martiloge in 
Englysshe printed by Wynkyn de Worde (1526) and 
reprinted by the Henry Bradshaw Society (1893) is the 
Martyrology of the Church of Sarum, with many 
additions. 

By the tenth century the general features of 
Kalendars throughout Europe are substantially 
identical as regards the greater days of observance. 
But differences, often of much interest, arise through 
different churches commemorating saints of local 
or national celebrity. It often happens that by 



96 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

this means alone we are able to determine, or to 
conjecture with considerable probability, the place 
or region where some liturgical manuscript had its 
origin. When we find in a Kalendar a large pro- 
portion of more or less obscure saints belonging to 
the Rhine valley, we may be confident that the 
manuscript belongs to that region of Germany. 
When an English Kalendar contains no notice of 
St Osmund we may be sure that it did not originate 
at Salisbury. When we find St Margaret on Nov. 16, 
St Fillan on Jan. 9, St Triduana on Oct. 8, and 
St Regulus on March 30, there is an overwhelming 
probability that the manuscript belongs to Scotland. 
In the Kalendar of York we find St Aidan (Aug. 31), 
St Hilda of Whitby (Aug. 25), and St Paulinus, the 
archbishop (Oct. 10), but these are all wanting to 
the Sarum Kalendar. St Kunnegund, the German 
Empress, who died in a.d. 1040, figures largely in 
German Kalendars. Sometimes we find marked not 
only her obit, but her canonization, and her trans- 
lation ; and at Bamberg the octave of her trans- 
lation was observed. Outside Germany she is all 
but unknown. St Louis is naturally an important 
personage in French Kalendars ; and he appears as 
far north as the Kalendars of Scandinavia. He never 
obtained a place in any of the leading 'uses' 'of 
England. On the other hand, at an earlier date 
continental influences on ecclesiastical affairs (not 
unknown before the Conquest) became potent when 
Norman churchmen poured into this country after 
a.d. 1066, and obtained places of the highest dignity. 



WESTERN KALENDARS 97 

It is thus probably that St Batildis, wife of Clovis II 
(Jan. 30), St Sulpicius, bishop of Bourges (Jan. 17), 
St Medard, bishop of Noyon, with St Gildard, bishop 
of Rouen (June 8), and St Andoen, another bishop 
of Rouen (Aug. 24), obtained days in our English 
Kalendars. All these are absent from the Anglo- 
Saxon Kalendars printed by Hampson 1 . 

Again, occasionally a Church Kalendar exhibits 
features which may be attributed to merely acci- 
dental circumstances. Relics of some saint belonging 
to another and distant region may happen to have 
been presented to some church; and thereupon his 
name is inserted in its Kalendars. It is thus, with 
much probability, that Mr Warren accounts for the 
appearance of the names of one northern bishop and 
two northern abbots — Aidan, bishop of Lindisfarne, — 
Benedict, first abbot, and Ceolfrith, second abbot 
of Wearmouth — in the Kalendar of the Leofric 
Missal. In William of Malmesbury, we read that 
in a.d. 703 relics of these saints were brought to 
Glastonbury. And in the case of two of these, 
Aidan (Aug. 31) and Ceolfrith (Sept. 25), the 
Leofric Kalendar adds to each name the word, 'in 
Glaestonia.' Other evidence makes it all but certain 
that Glastonbury and its history affected the Leofric 
Kalendar. At Cologne, which claims to possess the 
heads of the Three Kings, one cannot wonder that 
their Translation (July 23) is a 'summum festum.' 
In the Kalendars of the Orthodox Church of the 
East the deposition of relics is frequently the occa- 

i Med. JSv. Kal. i. 397—420. 
D. 7 



98 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

sion of the annual commemoration of the event, and 
the insertion of a festival in the Menology. In all 
countries translations of the bodies of saints are 
found entered ; and when the dates of such transla- 
tions are known from history, we are at once enabled 
to say of any particular manuscript service-book 
that the Kalendar, in which some particular transla- 
tion is marked prima manu, was written after the 
known date. On the other side, when we find any 
important festival absent, or, as is frequently the 
case, inserted in a later handwriting, the strong 
presumption is raised that the original Kalendar 
belongs to a time before the establishment of the 
festival. Thus, the absence of the Conception of 
St Mary (Dec. 8) from a Kalendar suggests that it 
is earlier than the last quarter of the eleventh 
century ; while the appearance of Corpus Christi 
goes to determine a Kalendar to be later than 
a.d. 1260. 

From what has been said, it will seen that, even 
apart from the style of the handwriting, the forma- 
tion of the various letters, the manner of punctuation, 
and other palaeographical indications, the mere con- 
tents of a Kalendar will often help the student to 
make a good conjecture as to both the place of the 
origin of a manuscript and the time when it was 
penned. 

As regards the particular Church for the use of 
which any Kalendar was intended, attention should 
be directed not only to the appearance of certain 
festivals, but to the rank and dignity of the festivals, 




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Kalendar of Durham Psalter (September) 
Jesus College, Cambridge (MS, Q. B. 6). Cent. xii. 



WESTERN KALENDARS 99 

which are often indicated by some such notes as 
'principal/ 'of ix Lessons/ 'of iii Lessons/ 'greater 
double/ 'lesser double/ or some other term of classi- 
fication 1 . Classification in continental Kalendars is 
often otherwise expressed 2 . In the Kalendar of the 
Missal of Westminster Abbey the dignity of the 
greater festivals is marked by indicating the number 
of copes (varying from two to eight) which were to 
be used, as has been thought, by the monks who 
sang the Invitatory to Venite at Mattins. No one 
will be surprised to learn that at Westminster the 
Feast of St Edward the Confessor (Jan. 5), and his 
Translation (Oct. 13) are marked 'viii cape/ a 
dignity which is reached only in the cases of 
St Peter and St Paul, the Assumption, All Saints, 
and Christmas : while in the Sarum Kalendar St 
Edward is marked on Jan. 5 only by a 'memory/ 
and his Translation is but a 'lower double/ At 
Holyrood Abbey, near Edinburgh, Holy Cross Day 
was naturally one of the greatest festivals of the 
year, while in the Aberdeen Breviary the Invention 
of the Cross and the Exaltation were both 'lesser 
doubles/ At Hereford, Thomas of Hereford (Oct. 2) 

1 [On these terms see Ducange, Glossarium, s.v. Festum ; Addis 
and Arnold, Catholic Dictionary, art. 'Festival.' Edd.] 

2 The classification of festivals in the Kalendars of Germany 
with Tyrol, Holland, Denmark, and Scandinavia, as printed by 
Grotefend, varies much. We find such terms as ' Triplex ' as well 
as 'Duplex' (Breslau); 'Duplex compositum' (Utrecht); 'ix 
Psalmorum' (Metz) ; 'Bini' (i.e. bini chori) at Salzburg; 'Festa 
Prelatorum,' 'Festa Canonicorum,' 'Festa vicariorum' (Boskilde); 
' Summum ' and ' semi-summum ■ (Erfurt), and many forms that are 
unfamiliar to English students. 

7—2 



100 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

was a 'principal feast,' and so was his Translation 
(Oct. 25); neither day appears in the Sarum 
Kalendar. The Translation of the Three Kings, 
already referred to, which is a 'summum festum' 
at Cologne, is all but unknown elsewhere. These 
examples will suffice for our purpose. 

It remains to notice entries of other kinds not 
uncommon in mediaeval Kalendars. There are notices 
of what I may call an antiquarian kind, which did 
not at all, or but seldom, affect the service of the 
day, but which are not without an interest of their 
own. Thus, such entries as the following are not 
uncommon. ' The first day of the world ' (March 18) ; 
'Adam was created' (March 23); 'Noah entered 
the ark' (March 17); 'The Resurrection of the 
Lord' (March 27), by which is meant that the actual 
resurrection of the Saviour took place on this day 
of the month, in the year in which the Lord was 
crucified. This assigned date is of great antiquity. 
We find it in Tertullian {adv. Judaeos c. 8); and 
later it was accepted by Hippolytus and Augustine, 
and it is frequent in the Kalendars of the early 
mediaeval period. In the Sarum Kalendar it is 
marked as a principal feast of three lessons, but 
there is no service answering to the day in the 
Breviary. We find 'Noah comes forth from the 
ark' (April 29); 'The devil departs from the Lord' 
(Feb. 15); 'The Ascension of the Lord' (May 5); 
this last mentioned day is plainly a corollary to the 
date assigned to the Resurrection, but it is not so 
frequently inserted in the Kalendars. 



WESTERN KALENDARS 101 

We may pass without comment entries of astro- 
nomical interest, such as 'Sol in aquario,' 'Sol in 
piscibus,' and such like ; the solstices and the equi- 
noxes ; the days when the four seasons began ; and 
such weather-notes as the dates when the dog-days 
(dies caniculares) began and ended. It will be observed 
that there was at least ancient precedent for what 
gave offence to Bishop Wren when he wrote of the 
Kalendar of the Book of Common Prayer, 'Out 
with the dog-days from among the Saints.' 

Some of the features just noticed continued to 
make their appearance in various English Kalendars 
after the Reformation. The Kalendar, indeed, of 
the Prayer Book of 1549 looks to our eyes singularly 
bare, with no days marked other than what we call 
the red-letter festivals. In 1552, the 'dog-days' 
reappear, and also the astronomical notes as to dates 
of the sun's entrance into the various signs of the 
zodiac. To these are added, for reasons of practical 
convenience, the Term days. The Prayer Book of 
1559 adds further the hours of the rising and setting 
of the sun at the beginning of each month. In the 
Primer of Edward VI (1553) the names of a very 
large number of the old Saints' Days are introduced, 
and the convenient reminder of 'Fish' is placed at 
the days preceding the Purification, St Matthias, the 
Annunciation, St John Baptist, St Peter, St James, 
St Bartholomew, St Matthew, St Simon and St Jude, 
All Saints, St Andrew, St Thomas, and Christmas. 
This Kalendar also, after the manner of many 
mediaeval Kalendars, marks the first possible day for 



102 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

Easter, and 'first of the Ascension,' 'uttermost 
Ascension,' 'first Pentecost,' 'uttermost Pentecost/ 
In some of the unauthorised books of devotion issued 
in Elizabeth's reign we find some of the dates in- 
ferred rightly or wrongly from the Scripture history, 
which had long before appeared in mediaeval Kalen- 
dars, such as days connected with Noah's story, the 
Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of the Lord ; 
and to these many other days of historical interest 
are added 1 . 

In many of the mediaeval Kalendars we find 
entered at Jan. 28, March 11, and April 15, re- 
spectively, the words 'Claves Quadragesimae,' 'Claves 
Paschae,' and 'Claves Rogationum.' The number 
of days to be counted from each of these dates to 
the beginning of Lent, to Easter, and to the Rogation 
Days, varying according to the place which any given 
year occupies in the Cycle of Golden Numbers, may 
be found with the help of a table prefixed to the 
Kalendar. It should be noted that the 'terminus' 
of the key never falls on the day of the fast or 
festival sought, and if the terminus of the key for 
Easter falls on a Sunday, Easter is the following 
Sunday. 

Several of the old Kalendars exhibit the days 
on which 'the months of the Egyptians' and 'the 
months of the Greeks ' begin, with the names of these 
several months. In some early English Kalendars 
the Saxon names of the months are also inserted. 

1 For further observations on the Kalendars of the Church of 
England and of Churches in communion with it see Appendix HE. 



WESTERN KALENDAKS 103 

This feature may have been of use to historical 
students, but having no bearing on ecclesiastical 
life in the West it is passed over here without 
further notice. 

For a similar reason we do not describe the verses 
frequently inserted at the various months, with ad- 
vice as to agricultural operations, blood-letting, rules 
of health, and the unlucky, or Egyptian days. 

Occasionally attached to early Kalendars and Martyr- 
ologies is to be found the Horologium or Shadow-clock — 
a set of rules for determining, in a rough way, the hour 
of the day by measuring one's own shadow on the ground 1 . 

The modern Roman Martyrology was preceded 
towards the close of the fifteenth century and in 
the sixteenth century by several attempts to provide 
what was thought to be a more serviceable work 
than that of Usuard. Among the more remarkable 
of these are the Martyrology of the Italian mathe- 
matician Francesco Maurolico, and that of Pietro 
Galesini, published first at Milan in the year 1577. 
The latter work had the effect of making manifest 
that there was need for the correction of the Roman 
Martyrology. Gregory XIII appointed a commission 
to deal with the subject. The result of the labours 
of the commission was printed in 1584. Further 
corrections were made by Cardinal Baronius; and 
the work as revised by him is in substance the 
modern Roman Martyrology 2 . 

1 See Quentin's Les Martyrologes historiques, pp. 27, 28. 

2 For details see Baillet, Les Vies des Saints, torn, i, in his 
Discoursy pp. xxxiii. — xxxix. 



CHAPTER IX 

EASTER AND THE MOVEABLE 
COMMEMORATIONS 

I. Paschal Controversies prior to the Council of 

Nicaea. 

The commemoration of the Pascha is the first 
annual Christian solemnity with which history makes 
us acquainted. And it will be well that the student 
should bear in mind that the term ' Pascha' was 
used in early times to signify, more particularly, not 
Easter (for which it was used in later times), but 
the day of the Lord's Crucifixion, more commonly 
without, and sometimes together with, the succeeding 
two days, including the day of the Resurrection. 
But most commonly the word is employed in the 
earlier literature of the subject to signify the com- 
memoration of the day of the Crucifixion, which was 
generally held to have corresponded in the history 
of the Passion to the day upon which the Paschal 
lamb was sacrificed in the Jewish ritual 1 . 

1 In the recently discovered Testament of the Lord, the word 
'Pascha' is used for the season preceding Easter, even as 
* Pentecost' is used for the season of fifty days preceding 
Whitsunday. 



THE PASCHAL CYCLES 105 

It is scarcely possible to conceive that, even if 
the Christian religion had taken its rise in circum- 
stances altogether dissimilar from those amid which 
as a matter of history it actually emerged, there 
would have been no commemoration of such great 
events as the death and rising again of its Founder. 
But the first disciples of Christ being Hebrews, and 
their converts at first being also in a large measure 
Hebrews, it was inevitable that the great Hebrew 
festival of the Passover should take to itself a new 
colouring and a new significance in Christian thought. 
Thus we find St Paul speaking of Christ as 'our 
Pascha' (i.e. Paschal victim), which 'hath been sacri- 
ficed for us' (1 Cor. v. 7). And he adds, 'therefore 
let us keep the feast (or keep festival) not with the 
old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and 
wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sin- 
cerity and truth/ It would indeed be unwarrantable 
to infer from this passage that a Christian Pascha 
was actually observed as a festival at the time when 
St Paul wrote to the Corinthians. But it is obvious 
that the passage is steeped in reminiscences of the 
Hebrew festival, and that these are already receiving 
a new complexion and a new meaning. 

The observance of the Christian Pascha first 
comes into marked prominence about the middle 
of the second century. At that date it was every- 
where a recognised institution of the Church ; but 
there were differences between the Churches of pro- 
consular Asia (the Asia of the seven Churches of 
the Apocalypse) and the Church at Rome and in 



106 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

other places, as to the particular day upon which the 
commemoration should be observed. The evidence 
with regard to the early stages of the dispute is 
scanty. Such details as we possess are not free from 
obscurity and have been variously interpreted. 

In a work like the present volume we can do 
no more than lay before the student the results 
which seem to us to have the greater weight of 
probability in their favour. 

The Asiatics, it would seem, began to celebrate 
the festival of the Pascha on the fourteenth day of 
the moon of the Hebrew month Nisan, the day upon 
which the Jews put away all leaven from their houses 
and slew the lamb of the Passover. On the whole, 
the evidence seems to make for the Asiatic Christians , 
terminating the preceding fast on the evening of 
that day, and on the same evening celebrating the 
Paschal feast consisting of the Eucharist, accompanied, 
perhaps, by the Agape. It was on the fourteenth 
Nisan, according to the prevailing Asiatic belief, that 
the Lord suffered death upon the cross, and in His 
sacrifice became the true representative of the Paschal 
lamb which had been his antitype. Foreign as it 
must be to us with our habits of thought to conceive 
of a festival being kept on the day of the Crucifixion 
(that is, on the evening which was regarded as the 
beginning of the following day), we must suppose 
that the realisation of the blessings of the redemption 
purchased by the Saviour's blood overtoned (to borrow 
a term from the art of music) the imaginative pre- 
sentment of the historical sufferings of the Cross. 



THE PASCHAL CYCLES 107 

Our own English term, ? Good Friday/ seems to have 
originated with a similar way of regarding the facts 1 . 

From what has been said, it will be apparent 
that, as the fourteenth day of the moon might fall 
upon any day in the week, the commemoration of 
the Resurrection, three days later, might also fall 
upon any day of the week. At Rome, and in various 
other places, the festival of the Resurrection was 
always observed on a Sunday, because it was on the 
first day of the week that the Saviour rose from the 
dead. The Asiatics laid stress on the day of the 
month — the lunar month — on which the Saviour 
suffered : the Roman Church insisted that the sixth 
day of the week, Friday, was the proper day for com- 
memorating the Crucifixion, and that the following 
Sunday should be kept as the feast of the Resur- 
rection. Those who made the fourteenth day of the 
moon to be necessarily the day for the celebration 
of the Pascha were known as ' QuartodecimansV 

The dispute was further complicated by the 
difference with regard to the observance of the fast. 
The Asiatics terminated their fast on the evening 
of the day of the Crucifixion. The Romans con- 
tinued it till the morning of the day of the Resur- 
rection. 

The Asiatics claimed St John and St Philip, the 

1 Gute Freitag is found occasionally in the German Church 
Orders of the Reformation Period. 

2 In Greek writers Te<ro-a/>e<r/cai£eKaTiTcu. [For a fuU dis- 
cussion of the whole question, with reference to the authorities, 
see V. H. Stanton, The Gospels as Historical Documents, Part i., 
pp. 173— 197. Edd.] 



108 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

Apostles, as the originators of the usage which they 
followed; and at the close of the second century 
they were able to recite a long list of holy bishops 
and martyrs who had never deviated from the practice 
of their Churches. 

It was some time about the middle of the second 
century that St Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna, the 
personal disciple of St John, visited Rome, and con- 
ferred with Anicetus, the bishop of that city, on this 
and other subjects. On the Paschal question neither 
bishop was convinced by the other; but it was agreed 
that on such a matter it was not essential that there 
should be uniformity. The discussion was carried 
on with moderation, the two bishops received the 
Eucharist together, and Anicetus, ' out of reverence ' 
for Polycarp permitted him to act as celebrant in 
his church 1 . 

The subject of the proper time for observing the 
Christian Pascha continued to excite discussion; 
and between a.d. 164 and 166, on the occasion of 
disputes at Laodicea, a defence of the practice of 
proconsular Asia came from the pen of one of the 
bishops of that region, Melito, bishop of Sardis. 
Unfortunately no remains of the work of Melito 
survive of such a kind as would help us to under- 
stand the writer's argument, or to clear the diffi- 
culties which surround the attempt to form a well 
assured picture of the practice of his part of the 

1 See Eusebius, H.E. v. 24, where the full context scarcely 
leaves a doubt that itapex^pncr^v t?Ji* eux«/oto-Tiai/ must be under- 
stood in the sense that Anicetus yielded the place of celebrant to 
Polycarp. 



THE PASCHAL CYCLES 109 

Christian world. It has indeed been conjectured 
that the work of Melito was directed mainly against 
certain sectaries, perhaps Ebionites, who on the four- 
teenth day of Nisan feasted after the manner of the 
Jews upon a paschal lamb. This practice was so 
distinctly Judaistic, that it was rejected everywhere 
by the orthodox. 

Of vastly more importance and significance, as 
affecting the whole Church, were incidents which 
occurred towards the close of the century. Victor, 
bishop of Rome, successor next but one to Anicetus, 
was a man of different temper ; or, at all events, he 
attached a much higher importance to uniformity 
as to the time of observing Easter. Interest in the 
question was roused in various quarters. Councils 
of bishops (at the instance of Victor) discussed it 
in Gaul, in Greece, in Palestine, in Pontus, and as 
far east as Osrhoene beyond the Euphrates. By this 
time it was found that what, for convenience, we 
may style the Western practice was also largely 
followed in the East. The churches, however, of 
proconsular Asia still maintained their old position. 
A letter written by Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus, 
to Victor on their behalf is preserved by Eusebius 1 . 

Victor, departing from the moderate policy of 
his predecessor Anicetus, thought the time had come 
for dealing more drastically with his opponents on 
the Paschal question, and sought to cut them off 
from the communion of the Catholic Church 2 . 

i H.E. v. 24. 

2 We do not enter upon the discussion of the question whether 



110 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

Victor's attitude called forth remonstrances from 
various quarters, and was the occasion of a remark- 
able letter written by Irenaeus, bishop of Lyons, in the 
name of the brethren in Gaul, over whom he presided. 
He declares that the mystery of the Lord's Resur- 
rection should indeed be celebrated only on a Sunday, 
yet he strongly urges the impropriety of Victor's 
cutting off 'whole Churches of God' because of 
differences on such a matter. He then adds that 
the controversy was not only on the question as to 
the day on which Easter should be celebrated, but 
also on the length and manner of the preceding fast, 
varieties as to which he recounts (see p. 79); and 
he goes on to remind Victor that bishops of Rome 
in former times, while strictly preserving their own 
usages, did not break the peace of the Church by 
excommunications directed against those who followed 
other ways 1 . Letters of similar purport were addressed 
by Irenaeus to various other bishops. The result of 
this intervention was that the Asiatic Churches were 
for the time left undisturbed in the practice of their 
traditional usages. How soon the Asiatic Churches 
fell into line with the majority is not apparent. But 
it seems evident that the change had taken place 
before the Council of Nicaea. 

We have seen that in the attempts to com- 
memorate on the proper days the death and resur- 
rection of the Lord, the Asiatics thought most of 

he actually proceeded to the length of a formal excommunication. 
In certain of his letters he undoubtedly spoke of them as 
d.Koivu)vr)Tovs. Euseb. H. E. v. 24. 
i Ibid. 



THE PASCHAL CYCLES 111 

the day of the month, and the Westerns and those 
who concurred with them thought most of the day 
of the week. But the latter party had obviously to 
make some attempt to lay down a rule which would 
at least approximate the date of their Pascha to 
the time of the year when the Lord suffered. The 
vernal equinox was taken by them, and by the 
Church of Alexandria, as the fixed point to which 
the date of Easter should bear some settled relation. 

It is perhaps impossible to determine with pre- 
cision when the rule came to be generally accepted 
that the full moon, which was to regulate the date 
of Easter, was the first full moon after the vernal 
equinox. We find that this is the rule which 
governs the Paschal Tables of Hippolytus (of which 
more will be said hereafter), and we find it expressly 
enjoined in that ancient collection of Church law 
which goes under the name of the Apostolic Canons. 
The Tables of Hippolytus can, with reasonable 
certainty, be assigned to a.d. 222. In the Apostolic 
Constitutions, the date of which it is impossible to 
determine with any close approach to certainty 1 , the 
rule runs, ' Observe the days of the Pascha with all 
care after the vernal equinox, that ye keep not the 
memorial of the one passion twice in a year. Keep 
it once only in a year for Him who died but once 2 .' 
The mystical reason assigned here also appears in 
the letter of the Emperor Constantine, announcing 

1 See the discussion by Bp Maclean, Ancient Church Orders (in 
the present series), p. 149 f. 

2 Lib. v. c. 7. 



112 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

the decision to which the Nicene Council came upon 
the Paschal question 1 . Later on the reader will find 
what is probably meant by keeping the Pascha twice 
in the same year 2 . 

It would not perhaps be fitting to pass over in 
silence the attempt made in the early part of the 
third century by the Roman ecclesiastic, Hippolytus, 
to construct a cycle which would make it possible 
to predict the day on which Easter would fall in any 
future year. 

As to who this Hippolytus was, Eusebius and 
subsequent students among the Fathers appear to 
have known scarcely anything. Eusebius speaks of 
the many writings of Hippolytus, and gives the titles 
of some of them, and describes one more particularly. 
This was a treatise Concerning the Pascha, in which 
was to be found a certain sixteen-year rule (canon) 
about the Pascha, the boundary of the writer's compu- 
tation being the first year of the Emperor Alexander 3 , 
i.e. Alexander Severus, whose first year was a.d. 222. 

The brief statement of Eusebius, dull and prosaic 
in itself, acquired suddenly a new and extraordinary 
interest in the year 1551, when during some excava- 
tions made in the neighbourhood of Rome, in the 
Via Tiburtina (the road to Tivoli), a much shattered 
statue was unearthed, which on being pieced together 
exhibited, on the sides of the chair in which the figure 
of a venerable looking man was represented as seated, 
two elaborate numerical tables, in Greek characters, 
one showing the day of the month on which the 

i See p. 117. 2 See p. 118 f. 3 h.E. VI . 22. 



THE PASCHAL CYCLES 113 

Pascha, or fourteenth day of the moon, would fall 
from a.d. 222 to a.d. 333 : the other showing, for 
the same number of years, the day of the month 
upon which Easter ought to be kept. The statue, 
as restored, may now be seen in the Museum of the 
Vatican. The Tables are constructed in seven 
columns of sixteen years each. On the back of the 
chair were inscribed in Greek the titles of various 
books, many of which corresponded with the titles of 
works attributed to Hippolytus by Eusebius. There 
could be no reasonable doubt that the statue was the 
statue of Hippolytus, and that the Tables represented 
his calculations as to the time for keeping Easter. 

A further confirmation of the correctness of this 
inference (though confirmation was indeed scarcely 
needed) emerged when a Syriac version of the Cycle 
of Hippolytus was discovered in a chronological 
treatise by Elias of Nisibis 1 . It corresponds exactly 
with the Tables inscribed on the chair. 

An examination of the Tables of Hippolytus 
reveals that he assumed 'that after eight years 
the full moons returned to the same day of the 
solar month ; and he took notice that after sixteen 
years the days of the week moved one backward ; 
that is to say, the full moon in the first year of 
the cycle being Saturday, April 13, after sixteen 
years it would be Friday, April 13, and so on 2 / But 
for the purposes of what he supposed would be a 

1 Lagarde, Analecta Syriaca, p. 89. 

2 See Dr George Salmon's article on * Hippolytus Romanus' in 
Smith and Wace's Dictionary of Christian Biography. 

D. 8 



114 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

perpetual Kalendar, Hippolytus desired to ascertain 
after what interval the full moon would fall not only 
on the same day of the solar month, but on the same 
day of the week. He assumed that this would hap- 
pen after seven cycles of sixteen years. 

We can also infer that Hippolytus probably 
placed the vernal equinox on March 18, for every 
full moon entered in his Tables is placed either 
on (as in the case of a.d. 235) or after that date. 

Again, the examination of his Tables reveals 
what may seem to us the somewhat arbitrary regula- 
tion that if the full moon fell upon Saturday the 
Feast of the Resurrection should not be kept on 
the following day, but on Sunday a week later. 
The explanation probably is that it was considered 
that Easter should never be held earlier than the 
sixteenth day of the moon, that is, two days after 
the day of the Crucifixion. If the full moon fell 
upon Friday, then the following Sunday would be 
Easter ; but if the full moon fell upon Saturday, the 
day of the Crucifixion was taken to be the following 
Friday, and Easter would be two days after. 

No Easter cycle yet devised is free from errors, 
which have to be met by adjustments ; but the Cycle 
of Hippolytus was such that the errors accumulated 
rapidly. It was more than two days wrong at the 
end of the first sixteen years ; and five days wrong 
at the end of the second cycle ; at the end of the 
third cycle it would be nine days wrong 1 . This must 

1 See Ludwig Ideler, Handbuch der mathematischen u. techn. 
Chronologic, 11. 219. 



THE PASCHAL CYCLES 115 

have been soon discovered ; and the cycle had to 
be discarded. It is the earliest Easter cycle known 
to ns. 

A cycle on the same lines as that of Hippolytus, 
which has been (probably incorrectly) attributed to 
St Cyprian, will be found in Fell's edition of Cyprian 
(1682), among the works commonly assigned to that 
writer. By whomsoever it was composed it is ushered 
in with a great flourish of trumpets, and the author 
feels sure that he has been led by nothing short of 
divine inspiration to the discovery. These Tables 
can be assigned to a.d. 243. One cannot but suspect 
that the author had got hold of the Hippolytean 
Tables before their worthlessness was discovered. 

Such seem to have been the best efforts of the 
learning of Western Christendom in the third cen- 
tury to deal with the Paschal problem. Nor at this 
period was the Church of Alexandria, which at a 
later date became the paramount authority on such 
questions, any better equipped. Dionysius, about 
the middle of the third century, justly styled by 
Eusebius 'the great bishop of Alexandria/ made use 
of the eight-year cycle, which, like its variant, the 
sixteen-year cycle, gathered error rapidly. 

It was, however, another distinguished Alexan- 
drian, more than a quarter of a century later, who 
was the first, so far as we know, to make use of 
the old nineteen-year cycle for the determination of 
Easter. This was Anatolius, a native of Alexandria, 
and eminent for learning of various kinds (among 
which arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy are par- 

8— -2 



116 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

ticularised), who became bishop of Laodicea in Syria 
Prima in a.d. 270. The nineteen-year cycle, with 
some modifications, eventually, though slowly, dis- 
placed all rivals 1 . 



II. The Council of Nicaea and the Easter 
Controversy, 

We may pass on now to the consideration of the 
determinations on this question arrived at by the 
Council of Nicaea. 

The varieties of usage as to the dates of keeping 
the Pascha had disturbed the mind of Constantine 
before he issued his invitations to the bishops of the 
empire to attend the Council. His trusted adviser, 
Hosius, bishop of Corduba, had been sent by him 
to the East in the hopes that by his arguments 
and persuasion the followers of the Eastern practice 
might be induced to yield. But the mission was 
ineffective, and the matter was submitted to the 
great Council in a.d. 325. We have no record of 
any of the proceedings connected with the matter 
beyond what is to be found in a Synodical Letter 
of the Council, and a circular letter of the Emperor. 
We cannot help feeling some surprise that the Coun- 
cil did not enact any canon on the subject ; but it 
was probably believed that the adoption of a rigid 
canon, with an attendant anathema, might have 
produced a formal schism, while a statement of the 

1 See for a full treatment of the subject Meier, n. 226 — 231. 



THE PASCHAL CYCLES 117 

opinion of the Council could scarcely fail to be highly- 
influential in eventually securing uniformity. The 
letter of the Council, preserved by Socrates 1 , is ad- 
dressed to the Church of Alexandria and the brethren 
in Egypt, Libya, and Pentapolis. It simply announces 
4 the good news ' that, in accordance with the desire 
of those to whom the letter was addressed, the ques- 
tion had been elucidated by the Council, and that all 
the brethren of the East, who had formerly celebrated 
the Pascha 'with the Jews,' will henceforth keep it 
'at the same time as the Romans, and ourselves, and 
all those who from ancient times celebrated the day 
^tt the same time with usV 

The Emperor is more full. He says that it was 
thought by all that it would be fitting that the 
Pascha should be kept on one day by all; that it 
was declared to be particularly unworthy to follow 
the custom of the Jews who had soiled their hands 
with the most dreadful of crimes, and who are blinded 
with error, so that they even frequently celebrate two 
Paschas in one year. ' Our Saviour has left us only 
one festal day of our deliverance, that is to say, of 
his holy passion; and he has willed that his Catholic 
Church should be one/ How unseemly is it that 
some should be fasting while others are seated at the 
banquet ! He hopes that every one will agree in this. 

i H.E. i. 9. 

2 In the opinion of Duchesne the controversy dealt with in 
a.d. 325 was between the system of Antioch, which celebrated 
Easter on the Sunday next after the Jewish Pascha, and the system 
of Alexandria, which insisted on Easter being always after the 
vernal equinox. See Christian Worship, E. tr., 237. 



118 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

It had been resolved that the Pascha should be kept 
everywhere on one and the same day 1 . 

There is nothing in these letters to show what 
rule had been established. All that is laid down 
is that the Pascha should be kept everywhere on 
the same day ; and it assumed that the Roman and 
Alexandrian rules as to Easter were identical, and 
were well known. As a matter of fact, while the 
Churches of Rome and Alexandria were at one both 
in keeping Easter on a Sunday, and on a Sunday 
after the vernal equinox, they were not agreed in 
their methods of calculating the Sunday upon which 
Easter would fall. Hence, long after the Council 
of Nicaea, several instances occur in which a day 
was taken for the Easter festival at Rome which 
differed from the day which the Alexandrian experts 
had calculated to be the correct day. 

It is worthy of observation that the Emperor in 
his letter reprobates what he assumes was the Jewish 
practice of frequently celebrating two Paschas in the 
same year. What is probably meant is that the 
Jews at that time (whatever their earlier practice 
may have been) did not think it necessary to keep 
the Passover after the vernal equinox. Now the 
vernal equinox was taken as the beginning of the 
tropical or solar year; and it might happen from 
time to time that the full moon of Nisan fell in 
one year after the vernal equinox, and in the follow- 
ing civil year before the equinox, which would give 
two passovers in the same solar year. If this inter- 

1 Eusebius, Vita Const, in. 18 : Socrates H.E. i. 9. 



THE PASCHAL CYCLES 119 

pretation of the words of Constantine's letter be 
correct, it would imply that the Christian Pascha 
should always be celebrated after the equinox, which 
was certainly already the general practice. But no 
specific rule with reference to the equinox is laid 
down in express terms either by the Fathers of the 
Council or by the Emperor. 

It will be observed that in the Letter of Con- 
stantine he states that the Lord has left us 'only 
one festal day of our deliverance, that is to say, of 
his holy passion.' The dominant thought connected 
with the word Pascha was still that of the Crucifixion. 
At a later period writers, for the sake of accuracy, 
made the distinction between the ' Pascha of the 
Crucifixion' (Trd<rx a vTavpvcnfjLov) and the 'Pascha 
of the Resurrection ' (irdo-xa avao-rdo-iiiov) ; and 
eventually the thought of the Crucifixion disap- 
pears from the connotation of the word, which has 
given the name for what we call Easter to the 
French (pdques) ; the Italians (pasqua) ; and the 
Spaniards (pascua) 1 . 

After the Council of Nicaea, although the Quarto- 
deciman practice lingered on among unorthodox 
sectaries, the differences among Catholics were in 
the main confined to such questions as, When was 
the equinox? and What Tables should be used for 
predicting the Sunday which should- be observed as 

1 In French there is a trace of the more extended meaning in 
the phrase 'quinzaine de Paques,' meaning 'Holy week and Easter 
week.' In Scotland and the north of England gifts of ' pasch eggs ' 
(pronounced 'paise eggs'), hard-boiled eggs stained with various 
colours, at Easter are still not unknown. 



120 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

Easter Day? The Synod of Antioch in a.d. 341 
(can. 1) could now make bold to advance a step be- 
yond the Oecumenical Council, and enacted a canon 
pronouncing excommunication against any who acted 
contrary to the command of the great and holy 
Synod assembled at Nicaea regarding the Pascha 1 . 
In principle the Church was united ; but there were 
differences in the application of the principle. In 
a.d. 444, and eleven years later, in a.d. 455, Pope 
Leo the Great was in perplexity as to the day upon 
which Easter should be kept. In a.d. 444 he wrote 
to Cyril of Alexandria on the subject. The answer 
he received was that the proper day was not March 26 
(as the Latins would make it) but April 23. In 
a.d. 455 Leo was much moved by finding that the 
Alexandrian computists had given April 24 for Easter 
Day, while those at Rome had assigned the festival 
to April 17, a week earlier. The matter seemed to 
him of sufficient importance to justify his writing to 
Marcianus, Emperor of the East, whom he now be- 
sought to intervene, and direct the Alexandrians not 
to name April 24, declaring that so late a date was 
beyond the ancient Paschal limits. Leo also wrote 
on the same subject to the learned and once beautiful 
Eudocia Augusta, who, though now spending her old 
age in retirement and devotion at Jerusalem, was not 
without influence in church affairs. The Emperor 
had enquiries made among certain bishops of the 
East and communicated with the Alexandrians. The 
result was that the observance of April 24 was re- 

1 Hefele, Councils, E. tr. n. 67. 



THE PASCHAL CYCLES 121 

affirmed, and the bishop of Rome reluctantly sub- 
mitted for the sake of peace 1 . 

The account of the matter lies in the fact that 
while the Alexandrians had long before adopted the 
Paschal limits that still continue to rule our Easter, 
that is, from March 22 to April 25, the Latins, 
though at this date accepting the prior limit, hesi- 
tated as to the later, because the Easter Tables then 
in use among them had placed the later Paschal limit 
on April 23. 

The position of authority conceded to the Church 
of Alexandria on the question as to the date of the 
Pascha was due to the acknowledged learning and 
skill of the astronomers and mathematicians of that 
city in matters of chronology and the computation 
of time. It was the practice of the bishop of Alex- 
andria, as early at least as the middle of the third 
century, to issue what were styled ' Festal Letters ' 
or, at a later date, ' Paschal Letters/ commonly of 
the nature of a homily on the religious lessons of the 
Paschal season, with an announcement as to the date 
of the next Pascha. These letters were commonly 
issued by the bishop a year in advance, and were 
sent by special messengers to his comprovincial 
bishops. 

It has been supposed by several ecclesiastical 
historians of repute that the Council of Nicaea 

1 For the history of the paschal controversies in the time of 
Pope Leo see Bruno Krusch, Studien zur christlich-mittelalterlichen 
Chronologie. Der S&jahrige Ostercyclus und seine Quellen (Leipzig, 
1880). 



122 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

expressly authorised the bishop of Alexandria to 
issue these preparatory notices to the authorities in 
the various churches of Christendom. The evidence 
for this opinion is lacking ; but certainly, as a matter 
of fact, the judgment of Alexandria carried great 
weight. In the West, however, the general practice 
was that Metropolitans should determine the date, 
and announce the day to their suffragans. In the 
sixth century the Council of Orleans (a.d. 541) directs 
that if the Metropolitan were in doubt he should 
consult the Apostolic see (Rome), and act in accord- 
ance with its decision (can. 1). About one hundred 
years later it would appear from the fifth canon of 
the Council of Toledo (a.d. 633) that the Spanish 
Metropolitan bishops did not receive information as 
to the date of Easter from any external source. They 
are directed to enquire among themselves by letter 
three months before the Epiphany, and make the 
announcement ; and the reason assigned for this 
canon is that erroneous Easter Tables had caused 
differences. 

To attempt anything like a detailed account of 
the varieties in the methods adopted for the deter- 
mination of Easter which held their ground for a 
time, some in the East, some in the West, would 
be unsuitable in an introductory work like the pre- 
sent. The extraordinary persistence exhibited by 
the Celtic Churches of Britain and Ireland in main- 
taining for a long time their own method of com- 
puting Easter against the Roman method introduced 
by Augustine of Canterbury and his followers, is an 



THE PASCHAL CYCLES 123 

important and interesting feature in the history of 
Christianity in these countries. It is enough here 
to say that the native Churches were not Quarto- 
decimans (as has sometimes been incorrectly alleged), 
but were adhering to a cycle which they had received 
long before the Roman missionaries arrived in Britain 1 . 
We must here be content with briefly noticing some 
of the leading features in the history of the change 
which gradually led up to the adoption of the 
Nineteen-Year Cycle as modified and propounded by 
Dionysius Exiguus in the early part of the sixth 
century. 

After the abandonment of the Cycle of Hippolytus 
there is found in use at Rome an 84-year cycle. In 
this the date of Easter is believed to have oscillated 
between March 25 and April 21 ; and between the 
fourteenth and twentieth day of the moon. This 
system, according to the results of recent research, 
was modified in a.d. 312 and again in a.d. 343. 
This cycle (still of 84 years) came to be known as 
the supputatio Romana. Easter could not now fall 
earlier than the sixteenth, nor later than the twenty- 
second of the moon, while its date limits were March 
22 and April 21. This supputatio, with some modi- 
fications, served the bishops of Rome during the 
fourth and the greater part of the fifth century. The 
Alexandrians, on the other hand, had about a.d. 277 
come to use the more exact Nineteen- Year cycle, 
with possible Easters between March 22 and April 25, 

1 See Appendix I. 



124 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

and between the fifteenth and twenty-second of the 
moon 1 . 

In the pontificate of Leo the Great the differences 
which he had with the Church of Alexandria as to 
the date of Easter caused him to direct his arch- 
deacon, Hilary (who afterwards succeeded to the 
papal throne), to investigate the whole question. 
Hilary resorted to the aid of Victorius of Aquitaine, 
who happened to be then at Rome. Victorius de- 
vised, or adopted, a cycle of 532 years, a combination 
of the lunar cycle of 19 years with the so-called 
solar cycle of 28 years (19 x 28 = 532). His Easter 
limits were March 22 and April 24. 

The cycle of Victorius met with favourable accept- 
ance, more particularly in Gaul, where it continued 
in use till nearly the end of the eighth century. 

At Rome, whatever may have been the position 
actually attained by the cycle of Victorius, it and 
all other devices for determining Easter gave way 
in the sixth century (a.d. 527) before the Paschal 
Tables of Dionysius Exiguus. This remarkable per- 
son, who came to occupy an eminent place in the 
science of chronology generally, as well as in the 
computations necessary for ecclesiastical purposes, 
was a monk, a Scythian by birth, who settled in a 
monastery at Rome. It is to him that we owe in 
chronology the adoption by Western Christendom 
of what we know as the ' Christian Era ' and ' the 
year of our Lord/ now in universal use for the 

1 See Bruno Krusch, JStudien, p. 32 f. 



THE PASCHAL CYCLES 125 

dating of the events of history, and of all our docu- 
ments public and private. 

The system of Dionysius was, practically, the 
adoption of the Nineteen- Year Cycle of the Alex- 
andrians. It fixed the date of the vernal equinox: 
at March 21, placed the Paschal limits at March 22 
and April 25, and declared Easter to be the next 
Sunday after the Paschal full moon. "We have here 
in full the rule which eventually came to prevail 
everywhere. But its adoption was not immediate 
in all countries 1 . 

The space at our disposal will not allow of our 
treating in detail of the work of the computists, and 
of the ' Sunday Letters,' ' Epacts,' and other technical 
terms which appear in the old Church Kalendars. 
For these, as well as for such terms as ' Indiction/ 
'Lunar Regulars,' 'Solar Regulars,' and 'Concur- 
rents,' reference may be made to such books as Sir 
Harris Nicholas' Chronology of History, and Griry's 
fuller and lucid Manuel de Diplomatique. 



The Gregorian Reform. 

The defects of the Nineteen- Year Cycle became 
apparent after some lapse of time. There were two 
grave sources of error. First, the Kalendar proceeded 

1 The student who desires further details of the history of the 
controversies about the date of Easter, prior to the time of 
Dionysius Exiguus, may consult with profit the dissertation of 
Adrian Baillet in the ninth volume of his Les Vies des Saints 
(ed. 1739). 



126 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

on the assumption that the solar year consisted of 
365^ days; but the true solar year is 11 minutes 
and some seconds shorter than the Kalendar year, 
and the accumulation of this error gradually brought 
confusion into the system. In one hundred and 
thirty years the Kalendar will have gained on the 
true solar year by almost exactly one day. At the 
date of the Council of Nicaea (a.d. 325) the vernal 
equinox was placed at March 21, but in the year 
a.d. 450 the true vernal equinox would be on March 
20. In a.d. 585 the equinox would be on March 19; 
in a.d. 715 on March 18, and so on. And thus it 
will be seen that in a.d. 1582, when the Kalendar 
was reformed, the real vernal equinox was about ten 
days earlier than the March 21 of the Kalendar. 

The second source of error lay in the assumption 
that at the close of a cycle of nineteen years there was 
an exact agreement of solar and lunar time. Nine- 
teen solar years, of 365^ days, make 6939 days and 
18 hours; but 235 moons of 29 days, 12 hours, 
44 minutes, and 3 seconds and a fraction make 6939 
days, 16 hours, and a fraction over 31 minutes. So it 
comes about that the solar time in nineteen years is 
nearly 1 \ hours in excess of the real lunar time. In 
other words, the moons in the second cycle of nine- 
teen years make their changes nearly 1 \ hours earlier 
than they did in the first cycle. It is easy then 
to show that in about 308 years this difference would 
amount to a whole day ; and in a.d. 1582, when the 
Gregorian reform was effected, the moon in the 
heavens made its changes nearly four days before 



THE PASCHAL CYCLES 127 

the time which was indicated for these changes in 
the Kalendar. 

We must omit any notice of the various schemes 
for reforming the Kalendar prior to the reformation 
of Gregory XIII. After he had consented to the 
general idea that a reformation should be under- 
taken, various schemes were proposed. Of these, 
that of Luigi Lilio, a physician and astronomer of 
the city of Rome, obtained the preference 1 . And it 
is on the lines suggested by Lilio that the work was 
accomplished, mainly by a German mathematician 
then resident at Rome, the Jesuit, Christopher 
Schliissel (or, in the Latin form of his name, Cla- 
vius), who afterwards published at Rome, in folio, 
an exposition of the work done, under the title 
Bomani Galendarii a Gregorio XIII Pontifice 
Maximo restituti Explicatio (1603). 



Leading Features of the Gregorian Reform 

The Gregorian Reform is an ingenious and, indeed, 
brilliant practical solution of the problems presented 
by the condition of the Kalendar at the close of the 
sixteenth century. The characteristic features of the 
Gregorian system will now be described. 

1. It was known that the true vernal equinox 
was at this date (1582) about ten days earlier than 

1 The author died before his work was presented to the Pope, 
a duty performed by his brother Antonio Lilio, who was also a 
physician. Now and then we find the Gregorian Kalendar spoken 
of as the Lilian Kalendar. 



128 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

March 21 as marked in the Kalendar. Should the 
equinox be fixed as at March 11 ? It was resolved 
to keep the equinox at the nominal date of March 
21, and to bring the date into conformity with facts 
by the simple process of striking out ten nominal 
days. It was decreed that the day following Oct. 4, 
1582 (when what is known as the New Style was to 
make its beginning), should be counted, not as Oct. 5, 
but as Oct. 15. And thus in the following year, 1583, 
the true vernal equinox would fall on March 21, as 
it was supposed to have fallen in a.d. 325, the date 
of the Council of Nicaea. 

2. But how was it to be provided that in the 
future the same errors which had vitiated the old 
Kalendar should not come in time to vitiate the new? 

It will be remembered that the time of the old 
Kalendar had gained on true solar time at the rate, 
almost precisely, of one day in every 130 years. If 
the counting of one day could be suppressed in every 
130 years, the end would be obtained. For purposes 
of practical convenience the reformers of the Kalendar 
assumed that 133 years should be taken as the period 
in which the Kalendar time exceeded the solar time 
by one day. The difference, for the purpose in hand, 
was insignificant ; and, as will be seen hereafter, this 
deliberately chosen error will not affect the Kalendar 
to the extent of one day till a.d. 5200, while it makes 
calculations much simpler. 

Now the plan adopted to prevent the accumula- 
tion of the error in the old Kalendar was as follows : 
if one day could be withdrawn in every 133 years, 



THE PASCHAL CYCLES 129 

or, what is the same thing, three days in every 399 
years, the object would be attained. 

In the Old Style, every year of an exact century 
—every centurial (or, as it was sometimes called, 
secular) year — was a leap-year of 366 days. What 
would be the effect of treating every centurial year 
as a common year of 365 days? We should have 
suppressed four days at the end of four centuries 
when we ought to suppress only three in 399 years. 
So it was suggested that while three successive 
centurial years should be regarded as common years, 
the fourth centurial year should be treated as a leap- 
year. Thus, in both Old and New Style the years 
1600 and 2000 are leap-years; but 1700, 1800, and 
1900, which in the Old Style were leap-years, are in 
the New Style treated as common years of 365 days. 
And the rule laid down in the Gregorian system was 
that if the number expressed by the first two figures 
of the century was exactly divisible by 4 it should 
be a leap-year, but if not exactly divisible by 4 it 
should be treated as a common year. The numbers 
16 and 20 are exactly divisible by 4, but 17, 18, and 
19 are not so divisible. The years 1600 and 2000 
are in the New Style leap-years, but the years 1700, 
1800, and 1900 are in the New Style common years. 

It is true that the adoption of 133 years, instead 
of 130 years, as the time in which in the Old Style one 
day was gained by the Kalendar on the sun, imports 
an error into the system, which causes the Kalendar 
to fall behind the sun. This error, as has been said, 
will accumulate to the extent of one day in a.d. 5200. 

d. 9 



130 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

It may be thought that, if men be on the earth at 
that date, they will know how to deal with the case. 
Yet it is suggested for the instruction of our remote 
posterity that they will have only to make a.d. 5200 
a common year, instead of a leap-year, to bring things 
back to correctness 1 . 

For the Sunday letters in the New Style and for 
the Cycle of Epacts in the Gregorian Kalendar, see 
Dr Seabury, Theory and Use of the Church Calendar. 

The work of the Gregorian reformation is mar- 
vellous in its elaborate ingenuity. It even provides 
for a case which will not occur till Dec. 31, a.d. 8600. 
Yet it does not reach the attainment of an exact 
correspondence with astronomical phenomena. And 
it has been frequently observed that the new moons 
of the Kalendar may occur one, two, or even three 
days later than the new moons of the astronomer. 
In fact the astronomical new moon rarely occurs on 
the date marked for the ecclesiastical new moon. 
But care has been taken that the new moon of the 
Kalendar never occurs earlier than the new moon 
of astronomy. 

The adoption of the New Style. 

As was to be expected, the countries of Europe 
which recognised the authority of the bishop of 
Rome were not long in accepting the reformation 

1 See Seabury, The theory and use of the Church Calendar in 
measurement and distribution of time, p. 120. Other devices of the 
astronomers which would reduce the error to only one day in a 
thousand centuries are noticed in the same work. 



THE PASCHAL CYCLES 131 

of the Kalendar. Spain, Portugal, and part of 
Italy made the change on the same day as at 
Rome, that is on Oct. 15 (5), 1582. In France 
and Lorraine the change was made on December 
20 (10) in the same year; in the Roman Catholic 
cantons of Switzerland in 1583 or 1584 ; in Poland 
in 1586 ; in Hungary in 1587. In Protestant 
countries and countries where Protestants were 
numerous the alteration was more slowly effected. 
But Denmark was an exception, for the New Style 
was adopted in 1582. In Holland and the Low 
Countries the provinces were divided in their 
acceptance of the New Style, and in some places 
the change was not effected till the year 1700. In 
Germany we also find a variety of usages : Austria 
and Roman Catholics in other parts accepted the 
change in 1584, but Protestants did not yield till 
1700, when they adopted the Kalendar of the German 
astronomer, Erhard Weigel, which differed from the 
Gregorian Kalendar only in the rule for determining 
Easter. This variation brought about the result 
that the Protestants and Roman Catholics sometimes 
celebrated Easter on different days. In 1778 
Frederick the Great ordained that from that time 
Easter should be kept at the time ascertained from 
the Gregorian Paschal moon. WeigeFs Kalendar was 
also adopted in the Protestant cantons of Switzerland 
in 1700. In Russia, Greece, and throughout the 
Christian East the Old Kalendar is still in use 1 . 

1 Sir Harris Nicholas, Chronology of History, pp. 32 — 34; Giry, 
Manuel de Diplomatique, pp. 165 — 167. 

9—2 



132 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

Great Britain was the last of the countries of 
Western Europe to adopt the New Style. It is true 
that as early as March 16, 1584-5, a bill was 
introduced in the House of Lords under the title, 
'An Act giving her Majesty [Queen Elizabeth] 
authority to alter and new make a Calendar accord- 
ing to the Calendar used in other countries.' The 
bill was read a second time in the House of Lords, 
and proceeded no further. 

Through an extraordinary blunder, it has been 
stated by writers of repute that Scotland adopted 
the New Style in a.d. 1600. The error originated 
in the fact that King James VI, with the advice 
of the Lords of his Privy Council, ordered by pro- 
clamation dated Haliruidhous, Dec. 17, 1599, that 
on and after Jan. 1, 1600, the year should be held 
to begin on Jan. 1 instead of March 25: but there 
was no rectification of the Kalendar by the omis- 
sion of nominal days. In England the legal year 
continued to begin on March 25 till 1752. The 
accession of James VI to the throne of England on 
the death of Elizabeth occurred on March 24, 1602, 
according to the English style, but on March 24, 
1603, according to the Scottish style. In this and 
such like cases the double dates may be wisely 
employed, thus, March 24, 1602-3. But Scotland 
did not use the New Style till it was adopted in 
1752, in accordance with the provision of the Act 
of Parliament of Great Britain (24 George II, c. 23), 
entitled ' An Act for regulating the commencement of 
the Year, and for correcting the Calendar now in use.' 



CHAPTER X 

THE KALENDAE OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH 
OF THE EAST 

The modern Kalendar of the Byzantine Church 
is here dealt with. The early Menologies (which 
corresponded pretty closely to the Martyrologies of 
the West) show the usual phenomena of comparative 
simplicity passing into forms of great elaboration. 
The best known are the Menology of Constantinople 
of the eighth century and that which is known as 
the Basilianum, now most commonly associated with 
the Emperor Basil II (a.d. 976—1025), at whose 
instance it is said to have been composed 1 . 

The history of the growth and variations of the 
Kalendar of the Greeks cannot be here attempted ; 
we confine ourselves to the Kalendar now in use. 

I. Immoveable commemorations. 

This Kalendar, or the Kalendar of Saints, begins 
on Sept. 1, the first day of the year of the Indiction. 

1 Notices of these Menologies will be found in Kellner's 
Heortology, 387 — 393: and on both the Menology and the Menaea 
(in twelve volumes, corresponding to the months from September 
to August) see the Dissertation de libris et officiis ecclesiasticis 
Graecorum appended to Cave's Historia Literaria. 



134 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

With us in the West the civil year has left no mark 
upon the services of the Church. In the Greek 
Church in the hymns the divine blessing is invoked 
on the new year ; and two of the lessons at Vespers 
are chosen as bearing references applicable to the 
day. 

The services of the Church have frequently several 
commemorations of various saints upon the same 
day ; and this general statement may be illustrated 
from Sept. 1. In addition to the propria of the new 
year, we find commemorations of Simeon Stylites 
senior ; his mother, St Martha ; forty women mar- 
tyrs with the Deacon Ammun ; and a miraculous 
icon of St Mary. To these must be added a com- 
memoration of the Old Testament worthy, Joshua, 
the son of Nun. This specimen will suffice to show 
that it would be impossible in the space at our 
disposal to exhibit the commemorations of every day 
in the year 1 . We shall confine ourselves to exhibit- 
ing the Greek classification of festivals, and marking 
the dates of some of the more eminent commemora- 
tions. But it must be observed that days that are 
not regarded as festivals frequently contain canons 
(metrical hymns) which commemorate saints or 
martyrs. Indeed the offices of the Eastern service- 
books are packed with an extraordinary abundance 
of hagiological reference and allusion. 

As regards dignity and importance in the Greek 
Church, in addition to Easter, which stands pre- 

1 Nilles' Kalendarium Manuale, torn i., and Prince Maximilian's 
Praelectiones, pp. 122 — 221, may be consulted by the curious. 



KALENDAR OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH 135 

eminent and is known by way of distinction as * the 
Feast ' (y eoprr]), there are twelve festivals of the first 
rank, some of them being moveable. These are : (1) the 
Nativity of the Lord, Dec. 25 ; (2) the Theophany 
(Epiphany), Jan. 6 ; (3) Hypapante (Purification), 
Feb. 2; (4) the Annunciation of the Theotokos, 
March 25 ; (5) the festival of Palms, which with the 
Sabbath of Lazarus on the preceding day makes one 
festival ; (6) the Ascension of the Lord ; (7) Pente- 
cost; (8) the Transfiguration, Aug. 6; (9) the Repose 
of Theotokos, Aug. 15 ; (10) the Nativity of Theo- 
tokos, Sept. 8; (11) the Exaltation of the Cross, 
Sept. 14 ; (12) the Entrance of the Theotokos into 
the Temple (i.e. her presentation), Nov. 21. 

Each of these is marked first by the day pre- 
ceding (proheortid) partaking of a festive character, 
and secondly, by having an echo of the festival on 
certain following days, which are known as the 
apodosis of the feast ; but the name is often applied 
to the final day of the observance. The apodosis, 
unlike the Western Octave, is in some cases shorter 
than a week and in some cases longer. Thus, the 
apodosis of the Nativity of the Virgin (Sept. 8) 
terminates on Sept. 12 ; while the apodosis of the 
Theophany (Jan. 6) ordinarily extends to Jan. 14. 

Next in dignity are four festivals of high rank, 
though not having either proheortia or apodosis. 
They are: (1) the Circumcision, Jan. 1 ; (2) the 
Nativity of the Forerunner (St John Baptist), June 
24 ; (3) St Peter and St Paul, the Koryphaeoi, June 
29 ; (4) the Decollation of the Forerunner, Aug. 29. 



136 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

The twelve of the first group and the four of the 
second may be taken as together corresponding in 
a measure to festivals of the first class in the Roman 
classification. 

Similarly corresponding to feasts of the second 
class in the West is a group which is divided into 
greater and lesser. The greater feasts of this group 
are marked liturgically by the singing of a canon of 
the Virgin in addition to the canon proper to the 
feast. The lesser are marked by the singing in the 
service of what is known as Polyeleos, a name given 
to Psalms cxxxiv, cxxxv (Pss. cxxxv, cxxxvi in the 
enumeration of the English Prayer Book). 

The greater feasts of the middle class are: (1) 
the common festival of the three Doctors of the 
Church [Chrysostom, Basil, Gregory Nazianzen], 
Jan. 30; (2) St George, martyr, April 23; (3) St 
John the Evangelist, May 8 ; (4) the Translation 
of the image of Christ, made without hands, from 
Edessa, Aug. 16; (5) the Migration of St John 
the Evangelist, Sept. 26. This festival is based on 
the ancient legend that St John did not die, but was 
translated; (6) St Sabbas, the Sanctified [Abbot of 
Palestine, who died a.d. 531], Dec. 5 ; (7) St Nicholas 
of Myra, the wonder-worker, Dec. 6. 

The lesser feasts of the middle class include : 
(1) St Anthony, hermit, Jan. 17 ; (2) the forty 
Martyrs [of Sebaste, under Licinius], March 9 ; 
(3) St Constantine and St Helena, May 21 ; (4) St 
Cosmas and St Damian, the unmercenary physicians, 
July 1 ; (5) St Elias, the prophet, July 20 ; (6) St 



KALENDAR OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH 137 

Demetrius, Great Martyr [of Thessaloniea, under 
Diocletian], Oct. 26 ; (7) Synaxis of the Archangel, 
St Michael, Nov. 8 ; (8) St Andrew the Apostle, 
Nov. 30. 

There is a third class subdivided into (a) festivals 
with the great doxology, and (b) festivals without 
the great doxology 1 . Festivals of the third class 
are very numerous, but they are festivals rather of 
the service-books than of actual life, upon which 
they leave little or no impression. The number of 
festivals kept by the Greeks and observed either by 
a complete or a partial cessation from trade and 
servile labour far surpasses the festivals so observed 
in any of the countries of Western Christendom. 

The Russian Kalendar corresponds largely to the 
Byzantine ; but there are, as might be expected, not 
a few commemorations of persons, events, and of 
miraculous icons, peculiar to Russia. 

A few explanatory observations may here be 
added : (1) The Eastern Kalendars contrast in a 
striking way with the Western in the prominence 
given to commemorations of the saints and heroes 
of the Old Testament. All the prophets and many 
of the righteous men of Hebrew history have their 
days. And the service-books contain a common of 
Prophets as well as a common of Apostles, etc. 

(2) Honorary epithets are freely bestowed upon 
the various saints without any very precise signi- 
ficance. Thus c God-bearing ' (tkeophorus), which is 

1 The great doxology corresponds substantially to Gloria in 
excelsis, and the little doxology to Gloria Patri, etc. 



138 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

a natural epithet in the case of Ignatius, as being 
used of himself in his writings, is bestowed on various 
distinguished ascetics, as Anthony, Euthymius, Sabbas, 
Onuphrius. 

(3) The ground for the distinction between 
'Martyrs' and 'Great Martyrs' is not apparent. 
' Hieromartyrs 9 are martyrs who were bishops or 
priests ; ' Hosiomartyrs ' are martyrs who were living 
as religious. Thekla, as well as Stephen, is ' Proto- 
martyr.' 

(4) The word 'Apostle' is not confined to the 
twelve. The seventy disciples whom the Lord sent 
forth are the ' Seventy Apostles,' among whom were 
reckoned many of the persons named in the saluta- 
tions of St Paul's Epistles. And the word is also 
applied to certain companions or acquaintances of 
St Paul, as e.g. Ananias of Damascus, Agabus, Titus, 
etc. c Equal to the Apostles ' (Isapostolos) is applied 
(a) to very early saints, e.g. Abercius of Hierapolis, 
Mary Magdalene, Junia, Thekla, etc. ; and (b) to 
great princes who were distinguished for their services 
to the Church, as Constantine and Helena. 

' Wonder-worker ' (thaumaturgos) is used of 
various saints famous for their miracles, as e.g. 
Charilampes (Feb. 10), Spiridion (Dec. 12), Gregory, 
bishop of Neocaesarea in Pontus (Nov. 17), the 
Saint Elizabeth (April 24), of uncertain date, who 
never washed her body with water, and others. 

John, son of Zacharias and Elizabeth, who with 
us is the Baptist, appears as the Precursor or Fore- 
runner (Prodromos). He figures much in the services 



KALENDAR OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH 139 

of the Church : and several days are dedicated to 
his honour; his Conception (Sept. 23), his Nativity 
(June 24), his Decollation (Aug. 29) and the great 
feast known as his Synaxis (Jan. 7). In addition, 
the first and second finding of his head is com- 
memorated on Feb. 24, and the third finding of his 
head on May 25. 

St Mary the Virgin is almost invariably the 
Theotokos, and Joachim and Anna are the Theo- 
pator and Theometor (Sept. 9). 

The 'unmercenary' (anarguroi) saints are gener- 
ally physicians who took no fees, as Cosmas and 
Damian, Cyrus and his companion John, and Pan- 
taleon. 

The term Synaxis in such phrases as the Synaxis 
of the Archangel Michael (Nov. 8), the Synaxis of 
the Theotokos (Dec. 26), the Synaxis of the seventy 
Apostles (Jan. 4), the Synaxis of the Forerunner (Jan. 
7), the Synaxis of the Archangel Gabriel (March 
26), the Synaxis of the twelve Apostles (June 30), 
is not easily rendered into English ; and its precise 
significance (as used in the Kalendar) is not obvious. 
It is sometimes used for a gathering or assembly of 
people ; but more commonly it is employed to signify 
a Eucharistic Communion 1 . 

It is customary after the great feasts of our Lord 
and of the Virgin Mary to subjoin on the following 
day the commemoration of saints associated with the 
event commemorated on the preceding day. Thus, 
the Epiphany (Theophany) in the Greek Church being 

1 See Suicer's Thesaurus, s.v. 



140 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

chiefly concerned with the Baptism of Christ, we 
have on the following day (Jan. 7) the feast of 
St John Baptist; after the Hypapante, or meeting 
with Simeon and Anna in the Temple (on Feb. 2, 
the day of the Purification of the Virgin, in the West), 
we find (Feb. 3) Simeon and Anna the prophetess ; 
after the Nativity of the Lord, the synaxis of the 
Theotokos, Dec. 26 ; after the Nativity of the Virgin 
(Sept. 8) we have on Sept. 9 Joachim and Anna, her 
parents ; after the Annunciation (March 25) we have 
on March 26 the synaxis of the Archangel Gabriel, 
who made the great announcement. 

It remains to be added that, as in the Orthodox 
Church of the East "Wednesdays and Fridays are 
observed as strict fasts alike by the clergy, the 
monks, and the laity, most of the important festivals 
carry with them either a partial dispensation (as in 
some cases for the use of oil and wine, and in others 
for the use of oil, wine, and fish) or a dispensation 
for all kinds of food, when a festival falls on one 
of these fast days. 

We now proceed to describe the annual cycle 
of Sundays. 

II. The Dominical Kalendar of the Orthodox 
Church of the East. 

The arrangement of the Sundays falls into two 
divisions, the first beginning with the Sunday before 
our Western Septuagesima ; and the second, imme- 
diately after our Trinity Sunday, which, with the 



KALENDAR OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH 141 

Greeks, is called the Sunday of All Saints. In the 
following table, opposite the names of the Sundays 
for the earlier part of the Dominical cycle, as given 
in the Greek service-books, are placed the names of 
the corresponding Sundays in the West, as known to 
English churchmen. 



Publican and Pharisee 

The Prodigal Son 

Apocreos 

Tyrinis, or Tyrophagus 

First of the Fasts (or 

Orthodoxy) 
Second of the Fasts 
Third of the Fasts (or 

Adoration of the Cross) 
Fourth of the Fasts 
Fifth of the Fasts 
Palms 

Holy Pasch 

Antipasch (or St Thomas) 

Myrrh-bearers 

Paralytic 

Samaritan Woman 

Blind Man 



The Three 
eighteen 1 
Pentecost 
First after 



hundred and 



All Saints) 



Pentecost (or 



Sunday before Septuagesima 
Septuagesima 



Quinquagesima 
First Sunday in Lent 

Second Sunday in Lent 
Third Sunday in Lent 

Fourth Sunday in Lent 
Fifth Sunday in Lent 
Sixth Sunday in Lent (Palm 

Sunday) 
Easter 

First Sunday after Easter 
Second Sunday after Easter 
Third Sunday after Easter 
Fourth Sunday after Easter 
Fifth Sunday after Easter 
Sunday after Ascension-day 

Whitsunday 
Trinity Sunday 



The following Sundays are numbered the Second, 
Third, Fourth after Pentecost, and so on, till we 



The 318 bishops at Nicaea in a.d. 325. 



142 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

reach the Sunday of the Publican (the Sunday 
before Septuagesima) in the following year. But 
while the numbers are continuous, special names are 
given to certain Sundays. Thus we find the Sunday 
before and the Sunday after the Exaltation of the 
Cross (Sept. 14) ; the Sundays before and after the 
Nativity; the Sundays before and after the Lights 
(i.e. the Epiphany). 

Again, we sometimes find the Sundays after 
Pentecost referred to as the First, Second, Third, 
etc., of Matthew; because the liturgical Gospel on 
these Sundays, on to the Exaltation of the Cross, 
is taken from St Matthew. Similarly, after the 
Exaltation of the Cross and on to Apocreos the 
liturgical Gospel for the Sundays is taken from St 
Luke, and the Sundays are named First, Second, 
Third, etc., of Luke. 

It is the subject-matter of the Gospel for the day 
which gives its name to the Sundays called the 
Publican, the Prodigal, St Thomas, the Myrrh-bearers 
(i.e. the women bringing spices to the tomb), etc. 

On the Sunday of Orthodoxy (the first in Lent) 
some sixty anathemas against heresy of various kinds 
are recited, including several against the Iconoclasts 
who were condemned at the second Council of Nicaea 
(a.d. 787). Tyrinis (or Tyrophagus) and Apocreos 
are explained elsewhere 1 . 

The name ' Antipasch,' for the first Sunday after 
Easter (Low Sunday ; Dominica in Albis), implies 
that it is ' over against ' or ' answering to ' the Pasch. 

1 P- 84. 



KALENDAR OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH 143 

On the Sunday of the Three hundred and eighteen 
holy Fathers of Nicaea a canon (or metrical hymn) 
in honour of the Council is sung. 

The naming of the week in relation to the Sunday 
is peculiar, and does not follow, as in the West, a 
consistent rule. In some cases, the week preceding 
a Sunday is given its name : in other cases the week 
is called after the Sunday with which it begins. And 
when the determination of dates is in view the stu- 
dent should be on the alert. Thus, the week of 
Apocreos (the last week of flesh-eating) precedes the 
Sunday Apocreos ; the week of Tyrine (when cheese, 
butter and milk are allowed) precedes the Sunday 
of that name ; and the first week of the Lenten fast 
precedes the Sunday that is the first in Lent. On 
the other hand, after Antipascha and on to the 
second Sunday after Pentecost the weeks are named 
from the Sunday which they follow : while the 
naming the week from the Sunday which follows 
is resumed at the latter date 1 . 

The period from the Sunday of the Publican to 
Easter Eve inclusive is sometimes called the time 
of the Triodion (TpiwSioi/), because the propria for 
that time are contained in a service-book which bears 
that name ; while the period from Easter Day to the 
Sunday of All Saints (first Sunday after Pentecost), 
both inclusive, is called the time of the Pentekostarion 
(TltvrrjKoo-TdpLov) from the name of the service-book 
used at that time. 

A few words must be said on certain week-days 

1 See Neale's Holy Eastern Church, n. pp. 743, 749, 753. 



144 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

observed with special dignity, the position of which 
in the almanack varies with the position of Sundays 
as affected by the incidence of Easter. It will be 
remembered that in the East the Sabbath (Saturday) 
is reckoned as a day of special religious observance ; 
and some Sabbaths are distinguished by special 
names. The Sabbath of Apocreos is a day for the 
solemn commemoration of all the faithful departed ; 
and vigils are kept during the night. It is known 
as the Sabbath of the Dead. The next following 
Sabbath serves for the commemoration of religious 
and ascetics ; it is named the Sabbath of Ascetics. 
On the Sabbath of the first week of Lent (known 
as the Sabbath of Kollyba) there is a commemoration 
of St Theodore Tyro, martyr, who, according to the 
legend, in the time of Julian the apostate, appeared 
to the bishop of Constantinople, and ordered him 
in a great emergency to make Kollyba and distribute 
them to the people. The bishop said in reply that 
he did not know what Kollyba were, and the saint 
explained that they were wheaten cakes. We need 
not pursue the story further. The Sabbath before 
the fifth Sunday in Lent is the Sabbath of the 
Akathist. A hymn, so called, in honour of the 
Virgin, was sung throughout the night by the people, 
not sitting down. The Sabbath before the Sixth 
Sunday commemorates the raising of Lazarus, and 
is called the Sabbath of Lazarus. Easter Eve is 
the * Great Sabbath.' 

It may be observed that while in the West the 
word Parasceve is used exclusively for Good Friday, 



KALENDAR OF THE ORTHODOX CHURCH 145 

in the East the word is used for every Friday, and 
Good Friday is distinguished by the epithet Great, 

A detailed exhibition of the Byzantine Kalendar 
cannot be attempted here, but the student will find 
it treated by J. M. Neale in the General Introduction 
to his History of the Holy Eastern Church (vol. 11) 
and with great fulness in Nilles' Kalendarium 
manuale utriusque Ecclesiae. 

Notes on the Kalendars of some of the separated 
Churches of the East will be found in Appendix III. 



10 



APPENDIX I 

THE PASCHAL QUESTION IN THE CELTIC 
CHUECHES 

The controversies as to the calculation of Easter be- 
tween the Koman ecclesiastics, on the one hand, and, on 
the other, the ecclesiastics of Ireland (Scotia), Scotland 
(Alban), and Wales, arose from the fact that our native 
Churches continued to follow a cycle which had, at the 
beginning of the fourth century, prevailed at Borne, but 
which was afterwards abandoned by the Church of that 
city. An admirable account of the matter will be found 
in Prof. Bury's Life of St Patrick, 371—374. The im- 
proved Boman computation was eventually adopted in 
the south of Ireland about A.r>. 650 ; in the north of 
Ireland in a.d. 703 ; among the Picts of Scotland in 
a.d. 710 ; at Iona in a.d. 716 ; and in South Wales in 
a.d. 802. 



APPENDIX II 

NOTE ON THE KALENDAES OF THE 
SEPARATED CHURCHES OF THE EAST 

I. The Armenians. The year is counted from the 
year 551 of our era, when the Catholicos, Moses II, who 
reformed the Kalendar, ascended the patriarchal throne. 
Thus a.d. 1910 is the year 1359 among the Armenians. 

One noteworthy feature of the Armenian observance 
is that, with the exception of the Nativity (Jan. 6), the 
Circumcision, the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple, 
and the Annunciation, various important festivals are 
transferred to the following Sunday. Certain minor Holy 
Days, if they fall on Wednesday, Friday, or Sunday, are 
in some cases omitted, while others are transferred to the 
following Saturday. In regard to days of fasting, in 
addition to Lent, the most remarkable feature is 'the 
fast of Nineveh/ kept for two weeks, one month before 
the beginning of Lent. The days of the week following 
Pentecost are fast days (see p. 91 f.). For details see E. F. K. 
Fortescue's Armenian Church, and Nilles, op. cit. (vol. n.). 

II. The Eastern Syrian (Chaldean, Assyrian, Nes- 
torian) Church. The Kalendar, Lectionary, and a list of 
days of Martyrs and others for which no special lessons 
are appointed will be found in Bishop A. J. Maclean's 
East Syrian Daily Offices. One of the most interesting 
features is the frequency with which Friday is observed 
as a commemoration of saints ; and sometimes the Friday 
commemoration is related in history or in thought with 

10—2 



148 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

the event commemorated on the preceding Sunday or 
great festival. Thus St John Baptist is commemorated 
on the Friday after the Epiphany (Jan. 6), of which festi- 
val the baptism of the Lord is the dominant thought. 
The festival is popularly called at Urmi ' The New waters.' 
For details see Maclean. 

III. The Coptic (Egyptian) and Abyssinian Churches, 
both Monophysite. The Copts compute their years ac- 
cording to i the era of the martyrs ' (of Diocletian), com- 
mencing a.d. 284. The year begins on the first of the 
month Tout, a day corresponding to Sept. 10. Each 
month consists of 30 days ; and the five (or in leap-year 
six) days necessary to complete the solar year are called 
'the little month.' There are fourteen principal feasts. 
The most peculiar features are commemorations of the 
Four-and-twenty Elders, and of the Four Beasts, of the 
Revelation. 

The Ethiopic Kalendar runs on broadly similar lines ; 
but it is a peculiar feature of this Kalendar that there are 
monthly celebrations of the Lord's Nativity (except that 
the Lord's Conception is substituted on March 25), as well 
as of St Mary, of St Michael, and of Abraham, Isaac and 
Jacob. Pontius Pilate is commemorated on June 25. See 
Neale's Eastern Church (it 805 — 815). 



APPENDIX III 

NOTE ON THE HISTOKY OF THE KALENDAR 
OF THE CHUECH OF ENGLAND SINCE THE 
REFORMATION 

As early as 1532 we find a Petition of the Commons 
(really emanating from the Court) to Henry VIII that, 
with the advice of his most honourable council, prelates, 
and ordinaries, holy days, 'and specially such as fall in the 
harvest,' may be 'made fewer in number.' To this the 
ordinaries answered, objecting to change, and, with reference 
to holy days in harvest, stating that ' there be in August 
but St Lawrence, the Assumption of our Blessed Lady, 
St Bartholomew, and in September the Nativity of our 
Lady, the Exaltation of the Cross, and St Matthew the 
Apostle, before which days harvest is commonly ended 1 .' 
The reference both in the Petition and the answer is 
obviously to holy days carrying with them a cessation 
of labour. 

In 1536 Convocation passed an ordinance abrogating 
superfluous holy days. It was ordained that in term time 
no holy days should be kept except Ascension Day, the 
Nativity of the Baptist, Allhallen, and Candlemas, nor 
in harvest except feasts of the Apostles and our Lady. 
St George was to continue to be celebrated. The feast 
of the patron of each church was to be abolished ; and the 

1 See Gee and Hardy, Documents illustrative of the history 
of the Church of England, pp. 150, 173. 



150 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

feast of every church's dedication was to be observed on 
the first Sunday in October. By this ordinance the great 
festival of St Thomas Becket, the translation of his relics 
(July 7), fell, as occurring in the season of harvest. Two 
years later by a royal proclamation the festival of his 
martyrdom (Dec. 29) met the same fate. 

The Kalendar of the First Prayer Book of Edward VI 
(1549) exhibits a clean sweep of all festivals except the 
red-letter days still observed, together with * Magdalen , 
(July 22), for which a collect, epistle, and gospel are 
supplied. St Matthias is placed at Feb. 24. 

The Kalendar of the Second Prayer Book of Edward VI 
(1552) differs from that of the First Prayer Book, by 
omitting St Mary Magdalene and St Barnabas (June 11) : 
but this latter would seem to have been omitted only per 
incuriam, as the collect, epistle, and gospel are found in 
the body of the book ; and by the insertion of the following 
black-letter days, St George (April 23), Lammas (Aug. 1), 
St Lawrence (Aug. 10), St Clement (Nov. 23), together with 
Term days, 'Dog days/ ' Equinoctium 3 (March 10) and 
the days of the entrance of the sun into the several signs 
of the zodiac. It is an interesting problem how in the 
Prayer Book, which represents emphatically the action 
of the more thorough-going of the Protestant party, these 
black-letter days came to be inserted. 

In the Prayer Book of 1559 'Barnabe Ap.' reappears ; 
the astronomical notes are somewhat fuller, and the hours 
of the rising and setting of the sun at certain dates are 
recorded. 

As regards the black-letter days in the present Kalendar 
of the Church of England we have first to call attention 
to the Latin Prayer Book issued by the authority of 
Elizabeth in April 1560. It seems to have been ready for 
the press as early as Aug. 11, 1559. Its Kalendar is adorned 
with a great crowd of black-letter saints; and there are 
but few days blank. In 1561 appeared a new Kalendar 
in English, the work of Ecclesiastical Commissioners acting 



APPENDIX III 151 

upon a royal letter. The Commissioners were directed to 
peruse the order of the lessons throughout the year, and 
to cause some new Kalendars to be imprinted, c whereby 
such chapters or parcels of less edification may be removed, 
and others more profitable may supply their rooms.' As 
a matter of fact the Commissioners went beyond their 
instructions, and inserted in the Kalendar the names of 
black-letter saints almost as they were a century later 
approved by Convocation in 1661. These were inserted 
in the later issues of Elizabeth's Prayer Book. 

After the accession of James I the Birth-Day of Queen 
Elizabeth ceased to appear in the Kalendar at Sept. 7, 
and St Enurchus takes its place. 

The only changes made in 1661 were the addition of 
Yen. Bede (May 27), St Alban (June 17), and the con- 
tinuance of St Enurchus (Sept. 7), together with the 
shifting (probably through mistake) of St Mary Magdalene 
from July 22 to July 21. 

With regard to the date of St Mary Magdalene a 
reference to the photo -zincographic facsimile of the Black- 
Letter Prayer Book, in which corrections were made at the 
last revision, will show at once how easily the scribe who 
copied from this book might make the mistake. 

St Enurchus, who had appeared in this form of the 
name in the Prayer Book of 1604, and still earlier in the 
Kalendar of the Preces Privatae (which had been issued, 
as Regia authoritate approbatae, in 1564), is obviously a 
faulty form, arising from an error of transcription, for 
St Euurtius. The first letter u, after the initial E, was 
read as n (the confusion of u and n is one of the most 
frequent of the errors of copyists), and the ti (in a manner not 
surprising to those familiar with sixteenth century script) 
was apparently read as ch. It may be added that Bede 
and Alban had also appeared in the Kalendar of the Preces 
Privatae. We have stated that St Enurchus appears in 
the Kalendar of the Prayer Book of 1604, and it was 
introduced then as the only addition to the black-letter 



152 CHURCH YEAR AND KALENDAR 

saints of the Kalendar of 1561. It is perhaps impossible 
to account for its introduction ; but the conjecture has 
been offered that it was inserted to fill the gap caused 
by the omission of the Nativity of Queen Elizabeth which 
had formerly occupied Sept. 7 1 . 

The above are not the only errors of our present 
Kalendar. The revisers of 1661 added explanatory 
comments to the names of the saints, and in doing so 
have sometimes blundered. Thus they found 'Cyprian' 
at Sept. 26, and they added 'Archbishop of Carthage and 
Martyr.' If they had taken the trouble to look at the old 
Sarum or York Kalendars they would have seen that the 
Cyprian commemorated on this day was the converted 
magician of Antioch. This error is probably to be traced 
to Cosin's Devotions (1627). 

It must be confessed that the black-letter saints of the 
modern English Kalendar form by no means an ideal 
presentation of the worthies and heroes of the Church 
Catholic. The Bishop of Salisbury (J. Wordsworth) has 
some admirable remarks on the future reform of our 
English Kalendar in his Ministry of Grace (pp. 421 — 425). 

Certain errors in the placing of the Golden Numbers 
in the Kalendar of the Prayer Book of 1662 for the month 
of January were soon discovered. They are noticed in 
Nicholl's Commentary on the Book of Common Prayer 
(1712). 

Among the red-letter days of 1662 were 'King Charles. 
Martyr' (Jan. 30), ' King Charles II. Nativity and Restora- 
tion' (May 29), 'Papists' Conspiracy' (Nov. 5). These 
days have the authority of the Act of Uniformity of 1662, 
all of them appearing in the Book annexed to the Act. 
On the authority of a Royal Warrant (Jan. 17, 1859), the 
legal sufficiency of which has been questioned, these days 
have ceased to be entered in the Kalendars of modern 
Prayer Books. 

1 See V. Staley's The Liturgical Year, where the Kalendar 
of the Church of England is treated with much fulness. 



APPENDIX III 153 

It may be added that the Kalendar of the Scottish 
Prayer Book of 1637 (known commonly, though not 
correctly as 'Archbishop Laud's Prayer Book') exhibited, 
in addition to the black-letter saints of the English Prayer 
Book of the day, the following national or local commemo- 
rations: — David, King, Jan. 11; Mungo, Bishop, Jan. 13; 
Colman, Feb. 18 ; Constantine III, King, March 11 ; 
Patrick, March 17 ; Cuthbert, March 20 ; Gilbert, Bishop, 
April 1 ; Serf, Bishop, April 20 ; Columba, June 9 ; Pal- 
ladius, July 6; Ninian, Bishop, Sept. 18; Adaman (sic), 
Bishop (sic), Sept. 25; Margaret, Queen, Nov. 16; Ode, 
Virgin, Nov. 27 ; Drostan, Dec. 4. 

The Kalendar of the Prayer Book of the Church of 
Ireland has since 1877 omitted all black-letter days. The 
same is true of the American Prayer Book since 1790. 



INDEX 



[See also Table of Contents, p. vii.] 



Abyssinian Kalendar, see 

Kalendar 
Ado, martyr ology of xvi, 93, 

94 
Advent, observance of 76 £f. 
Agnes, St, octave of 20, 71 
Akathist, sabbath of 144 
Alexandria, church of, its 

authority in settling date 

of Easter 121 
All Saints (Allhallen), festival 

of 23, 149; Sunday of 91, 

141; vigil of 75 
All Souls' Day xiii, 24 
Ambrosian rite 77 
anarguroi, see Unmercenary 
Anatolius, Paschal cycle of 

115 
Andrew, St, commemoration 

of 17, 19, 22, 63 f., 137 ; 

octave of 71; relation of 

Advent to festival of 79 
Anna, St, conception of, see 

Mary, festivals of 
Annunciation, see Mary, 

festivals of 
Antipasch 141, 142 
Antiphons, in Advent 78 f. 
Apocreos, Sunday of 84, 141, 

143; Sabbath of 144 
Apodosis 71, 135 
Apostles, commemoration of 

22,58ft\; Fast of the 90 f.; 



Synaxis of the Twelve 
58, 139; Seventy 70, 138, 
139 

Apostolic Canons 6, 111 

Apostolic Constitutions 6, 111 

Aratschavor-atz 92 

Armenians, their observance 
of Epiphany and Christmas 
32, 38; rules of fasting 78, 
91 f.; Kalendar of 36, 43, 
147 f. 

Artziburion 92 

Ascension, commemoration of 
18, 42 f., 135, 149 

Ascetics, Sabbath of 144 

Ash Wednesday 82, 83 f. 

Asiatics, commemoration of 
the Pascha by 106 ff. 

Assumption, see Mary, festi- 
vals of 

Baptism, of Christ, com- 
memoration of 30, 31 n., 
32, 1391 

Barnabas, St, commemora- 
tion of 70, 150 

Baronius, Cardinal 103 

Bartholomew, St, commemo- 
ration of 68 

Basilian Menology, see Men- 



Basilidians, festival of Bap- 
tism of Christ kept by 31 



INDEX 



155 



Becket, Thomas, institution 
of festival of Trinity by 
46 ; feasts of his martyrdom 
and translation 150 

Bede, martyrology of xvi, 23, 
49, 62, 69, 70, 93, 94 

Borromeo, Charles 83 

Candlemas, meaning of 48 ; 
festival of, see Purification 

caput jejunii 83 

Cava cognatio, pagan solem- 
nity of 61 

Celtic churches, Paschal cycle 
of 122, 146. 

Charlemagne, Capitula of 86 

Christmas, see Nativity 

Circumcision, feast of 22 f., 
37 ff., 135, 147 

claves quadragesimae, Pas- 
chae, Rogationum 102 

Clavius, see Schlussel 

Coena Domini 40 

Conception, see Mary, feasts of 

Constantine, letter of, on 
Paschal question 111 f., 
117 ff. 

Coptic Kalendar, see Kalendar 

Corbie Kalendar 71 

Corpus Christi, feast of xiv, 
98; octave of 72 

Cross, Holy, adoration of 
41 f . ; Sunday of Adoration 
of 141; Exaltation of 22, 
99, 135, 142, (a fast in 
Eastern Church) 91; In- 
vention of 99 ; Procession 
of 25 

Cyprian, St, Paschal cycle 
attributed to 115 ; com- 
memoration of, in English 
Prayer Book 152 

Dead, Sabbath of 144 
Decollation, see John Baptist 
depositiones, of martyrs and 
bishops 14, 16, 17 



dies caniculares 101 

dies profestus 74, 87 

Dionysius of Alexandria, 
Paschal cycle of 11^5 

Dionysius Exiguus, Paschal 
cycle of 123, 124 f. 

dominica camisfirivii, see 
Apocreos 

dominica in albis 142 

Dominical Kalendar, of Or- 
thodox Eastern Church 
140 ff. 

Dormitio, see Mary, feasts of 

Doxology, the great and the 
little 137 

Easter, regulations for date 
of 15, lllf., 122 ff. See 
also Pascha, Paschal cycle 
etc.; octave of 71, 72 

Edward, St, the Confessor, 
feast and translation of 99 

Egbert, Abp, Pontifical of 69 

Elias of Nisibis 113 

Ember Days, meaning of term 
90. See Fasts 

English Prayer Book, see 
Prayer Book 

Enurchus, St 151 

Epiphany, feast of 17, 20, 23, 
30 f., 135, 139; octave of 
71, 72, 135 

Ethiopic Kalendar, see Ka- 
lendar 

Evangelists, commemoration 
of 65ft. 

Fasts, in Advent 78; before 
Easter (Lent) 79 ff.; after 
Pentecost 85, 92, 147 ; Ro- 
gation days 86; of four 
seasons (Ember Days) 18 f., 
87 ff.; of vigils 74 1; of 
Eastern Church 90 f. ; of 
Nineveh 91 f., 147 
feria, meaning of term 8 
festa chori, festa fori xix 



156 



INDEX 



Festal Letters, see Paschal 

Epistles 
Festivals, rank and dignity 

of 98 f. 
Florus, martyrology of xvi, 

93, 94 
Friday, Christian observance 

of 10 f.; fast in Advent 78; 

a fast in Eastern Church 91, 

140 ; commemoration of 

Saints among East Syrians 

on 147 

Gabriel, archangel, Synaxis 

of 139, 140 
Galesini, Pietro, martyrology 

of 103 
gang- days 87 
Gelasian Sacramentary, see 

Sacramentary 
Gellonense, see Martyrologies 
George, St, commemoration 

of 21, 23, 136, 149 
Good Friday 41 f., 107 
Gorman, martyrology of 95 
Gothic Missal 65 
Gregorian reform, see Kalen- 

dar 
Gregory the Great 77, 82 
Gregory XIII,Pope,his scheme 

for a fixed Easter xviii ; 

appoints a commission to 

revive Martyrology 103 ; his 

reform of Kalendar 127 ff. § 

Hieromartyr 138 
Hippolytus, Paschal Tables 

of 111, 112 ff.; statue of 112 
Holy Thursday, see Ascension 
Holy Week, observance of 

40 ff. 
Horologium 103 
Hosiomartyr 138 
Hypapante, see Purification 

Immaculate Conception, see 
Mary, feasts of 



Innocent III, Pope, rules of, 
concerning vigils 74 f. 

Innocents, Holy, commemo- 
ration of 17, 19, 22, 33 ff. 

Irenaeus, letter of, to Victor 
of Rome 79, 110 

Irish canons, collection of 
85 f. 

Isapostolos 138 

James, St, son of Zebedee, 
commemoration of 17, 34, 
36,64f. 

James, St, the Lord's brother, 
commemoration of 34, 36, 
67. See also Philip and 
James 

James and John, SS., com- 
memoration of 16, 33 f., 65 

January, Kalends of, ob- 
served as a fast 38 f. 

Jerome, see Martyrologies 
(Hieronymian) 

John Baptist, St, commemo- 
ration of 17, 18, 21, 34; 
Conception of 53, 139 ; 
Nativity of 18, 68, 135, 
139, 149; Decollation of 
18, 69, 135, 139, (a fast) 
91 ; Synaxis of 139, 140 ; 
East Syrian commemora- 
tion of 148; vigil of Na- 
tivity of 75 

John, St, the Evangelist, 
commemoration of 17, 19, 
22, 33 f., 65, 75, 136; before 
the Latin Gate 21, 66 ; 
Migration (or Assumption) 
of 34, 65, 136 

Jude, St (Thaddaeus), com- 
memorated in Greek Church 
67 

Kalendar, causes of growth 
of xii f., 95 ff . ; antiquarian 
notices in 100, 102; arti- 
ficial construction of xii; 



INDEX 



157 



astronomical notes in 101 ; 
influences affecting 97 f . ; 
marks of antiquity in 13 ; 
value of, for study of MSS 
95 f.; Gregorian reform of 
125 ff.; Bucherian (Liber - 
ian, or Philocalian) 14, 28, 
31, 38, 59, 63 n.; Cartha- 
ginian 16, 31, 34, 38, 63 n.; 
of Polemius Silvius, 16, 
63 n.; Abyssinian 148 ; Ar- 
menian 147; Coptic 148; 
East Syrian 147 ; of English 
Prayer Books 149 ff. ; 
Ethiopic 148 ; Mozarabic 
36; of Orthodox Eastern 
Church 133 ff. See also 
Martyrologies, Sacramen- 
tary 

Kings, the Three, Translation 
of 97, 100 

Kollyba, Sabbath of 144 

Koryphaeoi 135 

Lawrence, St, octave of 71; 
vigil of 75 

Lazarus, Sabbath of 135, 
144 

Lent, observance of 79 ff., 
141 ff. 

Leo, St, correspondence of, 
on Paschal limits 120 f . , 
124; Sacramentary of, see 
Sacramentary 

Leofric Missal 69, 97 

Lights, Feast of (Epiphany) 
30 f., 142 

Lilio, Luigi, reformation of 
Kalendar by 127 

Litanies, origin of 86 f.; at 
Rome 67 

Lord, festivals of the, xii, 
27 ff. 

Lord's Day, Christian obser- 
vance of xi, 3 f., 5,6, 7, 10, 
37; vigil preceding 73. See 
also Dominical Kalendar 



Luke, St, commemoration of 

17, 66 
Lupercalia, heathen festival 

of 48 

Maccabees, commemoration 
of 16, 17, 25 f. 

Mamertus, bishop of Vienne, 
rogations appointed by 86 

Margaret, Queen of Scotland 
83 

Mark, St, commemoration of 
66 f. 

Martyrologies, use of term 
93 f.; influence on later 
Kalendars 94 ; marks of 
antiquity in 13 ; Bucherian 
(Liberian or Philocalian) 
14 ; Carthaginian 16 f . ; 
Syrian 15, 65 ; Gellonense 

62, 70; Hieronymian 34, 

63, 65, 66, 69, 70; modern 
Roman 103. See also Ado, 
Bede, Floras, Usuard, and 
Kalendar 

Martyrs, days of, observed 
locally xi, 12 ff., (at ceme- 
teries) 24 ; Acts of, read in 
churches 17 ; oblations of- 
fered for 14 

Mary, St, the Virgin (Theo- 
tokos), feasts of xv, 47 ff., 
148; Annunciation of 21, 
49 f., 57, 135, 140, 147; 
Assumption (dormitio, Re- 
pose) of 22, 51, 57, 75, 135, 
(fast before) 75, 90; Con- 
ception of xivf., 52 ff., 57, 
98 ; Immaculate Concep- 
tion of 52 ff.; Nativity of 
22, 50, 51 n., 57, 135, 140; 
Presentation of 51, 57, 135; 
Synaxis of Theotokos 57, 
139, 140. See also Puri- 
fication 

Mary Magdalene, St, com- 
memoration of 69 f. ; the 



158 



INDEX 



* myrrh - bearer ' 69 ; in 
English Prayer Book 70, 
150, 151 

Matthew. St, commemoration 
of 66 ' 

Matthias, St, commemoration 
of, in English Prayer Book 
150 

Maundy Thursday (dies man- 
dati), observance of 40 f.; 
meaning of term 41 n. 

Maurolico, Francesco, martyr- 
ology of 103 

Melito, Bp of Sardis, defence 
of Asiatic Paschal obser- 
vance by 108 f. 

Menology, character of early 
Eastern 133; of Constan- 
tinople 133 ; Basilian 30, 
133 

Michael, St, Synaxis of 137, 
139 ; monthly commemo- 
ration of, by Ethiopic 
Church 148 

missa ad prohibendum ab 
idolis 39 

Montanists, celebration of 
Pascha by 28 f. 

Mozarabic rite 77, 83 

Myrrh-bearers, Sunday of 141, 
142. See also Mary Mag- 
dalene 

natale, dies natalis, natalitia 
13, 15, 67 

natale Calicis 15, 40 

natale Petri de Cathedra, see 
Peter, St 

natalis Solis Invicti 30 

Nativity, of the Lord (Christ- 
mas), feast of 15, 17, 19, 
22, 27 f., 49, 76, 135, 140, 
147, 148; origin of feast of 
291; octave of 71, 72; 
fast before 90; vigil of 
75 

Nicaea, Council of, decisions 



of, on Paschal question 
116 f.; commemoration of 
the 318 fathers of 141, 143 

Octaves, meaning of term 
70 f.; history of 71 

Oengus, the Culdee, martyr- 
ology of 95 

Old Testament worthies, com- 
memoration of xii, 134, 136, 
148 

Orthodoxy Sunday xiii, 141, 
142 

O sapientia 78 f. 

Palm Sunday (Feast of Palms) 
40, 84, 135, 141 

Parasceve 10, 11, 37, 144 f. 

Pascha, original use of term 
104 ff. ; Christian com- 
memoration of xi, 37, 
104 ff . ; dies Paschae 40 

Paschal Cycles, of Hippolytus 
111, 112 ff.; of Dionysius 
Al. 115; of Anatolius 115; 
Boman 123 ; Alexandrine 
123; of Victorius 124; of 
Dionysius Exiguus 123, 
124 f. 

Paschal Epistles xviii, 121 

Paschal limits 120 f. 

Paschal question xvii, 105 ff. 

Pascha] Tables, see Paschal 
Cycles 

Passiontide, observance of 
40 ff. 

Paul, St, commemoration of 
21, 33 ; Conversion of 69 ; 
Translation of 69. See also 
Peter and Paul 

Pentecost, meaning of term 
43 *ff. ; observance of 18, 
37, 43 ff., 135, 141; octave 
of 71, 72; vigil of 75 

Peter, St, commemoration of 
33; Chains of (ad Vinculo) 
21, 25, 63; Chair of (Ca- 
thedra Petri) 15, 59, 60 ff.; 



INDEX 



159 



Dedication of Basilica of 
18, 63 

Peter and Paul, SS., com- 
memoration of 16, 18, 21, 
34, 35, 135; depositio of 
16; origin of festival of 
xiii, 59 f . ; fast before 90 ; 
octave of 71 

Philip, the deacon 67 

Philip, St, feast of 67, 78; 
fast of 78 

Philip and James, SS., com- 
memoration of 21, 67, 75 

Pliny, letter of, to Trajan 72 

Poly carp, St, conference of, 
with Anicetus on Paschal 
question 108 

Polycrates, letter of, on Pas- 
chal controversy 109 

Polyeleos 136 

Pontius Pilate, commemo- 
rated by Ethiopians 148 

Prayer Book, American 43, 
153; English (1549, 1552) 
70, 101, 150, (1559) 101, 
150, (1604) 151, (1662) 79, 
151; Irish 153 ; Latin (1560) 
150 ; Scottish (1637) 79, 153 

Preces Privatae (1564) 151 

Pre-sanctified, Mass of 42 

Presentation, of the Lord in 
Temple 48, 147. See also 
Purification; of St Mary, 
see Mary, feasts of 

Primer, of Edward VI 101 

Prodromos 138 

proheortia 43, 135 

Protevangelium Jacobi 50 n., 
52 n., 53 n. 

Purification (Hypapante, 

Candlemas), feast of 20, 23, 
47 ff., 51 n., 57, 101, 135, 
140, 149 

Quadragesima, ante Pascha 
(Lent) 80 f., 85; ofStMartin 
77,85; after Pentecost 85; 



before St John Baptist 85 f. 

See also Fasts 
Quartodecimans 107 
Quinquagesima 84 

Kabanus Maurus, martyr- 
ology of 69, 95 

Belies, translation of, as af- 
fecting Kalendars 97 

Kequiem masses, prohibited 
within certain octaves, 72 

Kogation Days, origin of 86 f. 

Roman Breviary and Missal 
63, 71 

Roman Kalendar 52 

Sabbath, see Saturday 

Sacramentary, Gallican 77 ; 

Gothico-Gallican 77 ; Ge- 

lasian 20, 39, 58, 64, 66, 

68 ; Gregorian 20 f., 33, 

39, 49, 66, 68, 69, 83 ; Leo- 
nine 18 f., 42, 58, 64, 66, 
68, 88 f. 

Samaria, woman of (Photina), 
commemorated xii, 141 

Sarum, Breviary 32, 51, 52; 
Enchiridion 51 f. ; Missal 
32, 51 

Saturday (or Sabbath), Chris- 
tian observance of 2, 4 ff. ; 
special observances of, in 
Greek Church 144 ; Great 
Sabbath 6, 40, 144 

Schlussel, Christopher, re- 
formation of Kalendar by 
127 

Seventy Apostles (disciples) 
70, 138, 139 

Sexagesima 84 

Silvia, Pilgrimage of xvi, 27, 

40, 42, 48, 72, 73, 82 
Simon and Jude, SS., com- 
memoration of, 67 

Simon Zelotes, St, commemo- 
rated in Greek Church 67 
Station (statio) 11 



160 



INDEX 



Stephen, St, commemoration 
of 16, 17, 18 n., 22, 33, 34 
Style, New, history of adop- 
tion of 130 ft. 
Sunday, see Lord's Day 
supputatio Romana 123 
Synaxis, use of term in East- 
ern Kalendars 139 
Syrians, East, Kalendar of 
147 f. 

Tessarakoste, use of term 80, 
90 f. 

Thaddaeus, see Jude 

thaumaturgos 138 

Theodore, of Canterbury, 
Paenitentiale of 85 

Theodore Tyro, St, 144 

Theometor, Theopator, 139 

Theophany, see Epiphany 

theophorus 137 

Theotokos, see Mary, feasts 
of 

Thomas, St, commemoration 
of 67 f . 

Three hundred and eighteen, 
see Nicaea 

Transfiguration, commemo- 
ration of 43, 135 

Trinity Sunday, observance 
of 45 f. 

Tyrinis or Tyrophagus (Sun- 
day) 84, 141, 143 

Unmercenary saints 139 



Usuard, martyrology of xvi, 
49, 62, 67, 93, 94, 95 

Victor, Bp of Kome, attitude 
of, on Paschal question 109 f . 

Victorius of Aquitaine, Pas- 
chal cycle of 124 

Vigils, origin of 72 ff.; rules 
for 74 f . ; at Ember seasons 88 

Votive masses, prohibited 
within certain octaves 72 

Wednesday, observance of 
10 f . ; fast in Advent 78 ; a fast 
in Eastern Church 91, 140 

Week, Jewish and Christian 
2; first day of, see Lord's 
Day; Great, see Holy Week 

Weigel, Ehrhard, Kalendar 
of 131 

Ximenes, Cardinal 83 

avak7}\pi$ 42 

fX€Tajmop(p(i}<ns 43 

irapaaKevf} 10 

Tjwxa dvaarda-t/JLov 119 

7rct(rxa (TTavp&aifxov 119 

ir€VT7]K0(TTapi0V 143 

T€<T<rapaK0<TT7) 80 
Te(r<rape<r/cai5e/ca7rrcu 107 
Tpiipdwv 143 



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